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 22 years of the Opera Studio program, the 85 singers who were part of the program have between themselves performed around 175 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 and in the 2019/20 main stage production of Dead Man Walking almost all cast members were Meitar Opera Studio alumni. In each of the five productions of the 2020/21 season, The Medium, Mothers, Die Fledermaus, L’Italiana in Algeri and I Capuleti ed I Montecchi, Meitar Opera Studio alumni were the major featured soloists. Meitar 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), La Sonnambula and I Capuleti ed i Montecchi (Bellini), Mothers (Sebba), Don Pasquale (Donizetti) and others as well as the Israeli premieres of The Pirates (Storace) with the Phoenix Ensemble and La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina (Caccini) and La Calisto (Cavalli) with the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra.
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 Nacht family for giving a special donation for the Leon Nacht scholarships for the 2020/21 season and 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 (2021/22) are:
Inbal Brill, Ksenia Glonty, Nika Yankelevich - soprano
Chen Holtzman, Yarden Kiperman, Gal Kohav - mezzo soprano
Stas Davidov , Anton Trotoush – tenor
Noam Heinz – baritone
Yoav Ayalon - bass
  

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:

2020-2021

Tom Cohen, soprano

Stas Davidov, tenor

Ksenia Glonty, soprano

Noam Heinz, baritone

Sivan Keren, soprano

Yarden Kiperman, mezzo soprano

Tamara Navoth, mezzo soprano

Karina Radzion, mezzo soprano

Rona Shrira, mezzo soprano

2019-2020

Tom Ben Ishai, soprano

Shira Cohen, soprano

Tom Cohen, soprano

Sivan Keren, soprano

Tamara Navoth, mezzo soprano

Karina Radzion, mezzo soprano

Rona Shrira, mezzo soprano

2018-2019
Tom Ben Ishai, soprano

Veronika Brook, soprano

Shira Cohen, soprano

Efrat Hacohen Bram, soprano

Pnini Leon Grubner, bass

Liat Lidor, soprano
Yuli Rorman, mezzo soprano
Shaked Strul, soprano

2017-2018 
Maya Bakstansky, mezzo-soprano

Veronika Brook, soprano 

Efrat Hacohen Bram, soprano
Zlata Khershberg, mezzo soprano 

Pnini Leon Grubner, bass

Liat Lidor, soprano
Yuli Rorman, mezzo soprano  

Shaked Strul, soprano

2016-2017
Irene Alhazov, soprano
Maya Bakstansky, mezzo-soprano

Michal Doron, mezzo-soprano

Tal Ganor, soprano
Galina Khlyzova, soprano 
Efrat Vulfsons, soprano
Nofar Yacobi, soprano