Meitar Opera Studio
The Young Artists Program of the Israeli Opera

The Meitar Opera Studio is a practical study and performance program for young Israeli opera singers who graduated from any given music academy and who are on the verge of embarking on an operatic career. The major goal of the Meitar Opera Studio is to nurture operatic talent in Israel and to help young opera singers to work in their profession. The Meitar Opera Studio program is aimed at young Israeli opera singers who are willing to hone their craft, further their studies on an ongoing basis and gain stage experience, thus getting ready for a full-fledged operatic career.
The actual curriculum of the Meitar Opera Studio is aimed at enlarging the experience of the participating singers and enabling them to gain musical and dramatic knowledge on a personal level and even more so as part of ensemble work.
At the end of the 19 years of the Opera Studio program, the 80 singers who were part of the program have between themselves performed around 150 roles in various Israeli Opera productions, side by side with participating in numerous concerts and performances in which they performed a very wide repertoire. Singers who have graduated from the Opera Studio program continue to perform in Israeli Opera productions on a regular basis as well as perform with all leading Israeli orchestras all over the country. In the fall of 2005, all members of the Opera Studio participated in a production of Dido & Aeneas, which was performed in Tel Aviv and in Stuttgart. In the summer of 2010, all Opera Studio singers participated in the world premiere of Alice in Wonderland (David Sebba). In the 2018/19 main stage productions of Dido and Aeneas, The Passenger and Cosi fan tutte almost all cast members were Meitar Opera Studio alumni. Opera Studio singers also performed in concerts in Switzerland, Great Britain, Australia and South Korea.
Notable Opera Studio productions include Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, La clemenza di Tito, la finta giardiniera (Mozart), La boheme (Puccini), Werther (Massenet), The Telephone and The Medium (Menotti), I Capuleti ed i Montecchi (Bellini), Mothers (Sebba) and others.
Meitar Opera Studio singers have worked through the years with numerous artists including Giuliano Carella, Asher Fisch, Dan Ettinger, David Stern, Daniel Cohen, Patricia McCaffrey, Mark Schnaible, Gulio Zappa, John Norris, Mozart de Oliviera, Anne Champert, Rainer Armbrust, Gwyneth Jones, Ido Ricklin, Gadi Roll, Marco Gandini, Alessandro Talevi and many others.      
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Opera Studio alumni including Hila Baggio, Ira Bertman, Hila Fahima, Noa Danon, Dana Marbach, Ana Virovlanski, Shiri Hershkovitz, Rachel Frenkel, Na'ama Goldman, Anat Czarny, David Bizic, Oded Reich, Daniela Skorka, Tal Ganor, Shahar Lavi, Michal Doron, Nofar Yacobi, Galina Benevic and others perform regularly leading roles with the Israeli Opera as well as in major opera houses around the world including the Vienna Staatsoper, the Berlin Staatsoper, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the opera houses of Munich, Warsaw, Magdeburg, Dresden, Freiburg, Luzern, Basel, Tokyo, Pesaro and others.

The Israeli Opera thanks the Zvi & Ofra Meitar Family Fund for their ongoing generous support which enables the variegated activities of the Meitar Opera Studio.
The Israeli Opera also thanks the many other individuals and organizations who support the Meitar Opera Studio, first and foremost the Friends of Israeli Opera UK.

The Music Director of the Meitar Opera Studio is David Sebba.
The Artistic Director of the Meitar Opera Studio is Shirit Lee Weiss.

Current members of the Meitar Opera Studio (2019/20) are:
Tom Ben Ishai, Shira Cohen, Tom Cohen, Nour Darwish, Sivan Keren - soprano
Tamara Navot, Karina Radzion, Rona Shrira - mezzo soprano

We invite you to support young artists and develop a new generation of outstanding Israeli opera singers.

For donations and further information please contact Shira Raz.

Telephone: +972-3-6927782
Fax: +972-3-6954886
shira@israelopera.org.il

Opera Studio Members since its inception:

2018-2019
Tom Ben Iishai - soprano

Efrat  Hacohen Bram - soprano

Veronika Brook - soprano

Shira Cohen - soprano

Liat Lidor - soprano

Shaked Strul - soprano
Yuli Rorman - mezzo soprano
Pnini Leon Grubner - bass

2017-2018 
Maya Bakstansky - mezzo-soprano

Efrat  Hacohen Bram - soprano
Veronika Brook - soprano 
Liat Lidor - soprano
Shaked Strul - soprano

Zlata Khershberg - mezzo soprano  

Yuli Rorman - mezzo soprano  

Pnini Leon Grubner - bass

2016-2017
Irene Alhazov - soprano
Tal Ganor - soprano
Galina Khlyzova  - soprano 
Efrat Vulfsons  - soprano
Nofar Yacobi - soprano  
Maya Bakstansky - mezzo-soprano

Michal Doron -  mezzo-soprano