info-e-oper

The Bern University of the Arts runs the only Swiss Opera Studio within the context of a regular university education. It is a Master`s degree programme entitled Master of Arts in Specialized Music Performance Opera. At the heart of the programme are scenic work in the field of musical theatre, solo correpetition/studying parts, being involved in opera productions as well as accompanying opera-specific singing training. Added to this are further subjects relevant to opera, such as audition training, auditioning for agencies and opera houses as well as artistic internships (specific parts in musical theatre productions). Every semester students have the opportunity to gain stage experience.

The spectrum of the education includes musical, scenic and further stage-related classes, as well as the additional core subject of opera-specific singing. The students work on their musical and dramatic expression continuously. The projects and productions of the Swiss Opera Studio are of particular significance. Both excerpts from important operas as well as entire parts and operas are rehearsed and staged. These stage productions are performed to the public. The studies take place at the BUA site in Burg, in the heart of the old town of Biel/Bienne. This newly renovated building, with its numerous rehearsal stages, teaching rooms and its combination of various degree programmes provides a great basis for the studies.

In the different classes, a diverse spectrum of stylistic as well as dramatic skills is taught - from Italian, French and German opera literature. Important insights from performance practice contribute to the learning process. Artistic internships during the studies provide experience on musical theatre stages and are a fixture in the curriculum due to the proximity of the theatre Biel Solothurn. Students also regularly attend auditions. The Bern University of the Arts actively promotes the linking of different degree programmes and interdisciplinary education.

The Swiss Opera Studio is at home in the bilingual town of Biel/Bienne - German and French are both teaching and everyday languages in the town and region. In the programme Master of Arts in Specialized Music Performance Opera young singers are prepared for their future career in musical theatre. Conditions for this are a finished singing degree (Bachelor, Master of equivalent degree) and a successful aptitude test at the Swiss Opera Studio.

The Swiss Opera Studio in Collaboration with Swiss Music Universities  

Since the introduction of the Master of Arts in Specialized Music Performance Opera, the Swiss Opera Studio has enjoyed a fruitful collaboration and exchange with other Swiss music universities. Students of the BUA as well as of the partner universities can specialise in opera at the Swiss Opera Studio and, thus, external students have access to an interesting pool of teachers for the additional core subject of opera-specific singing.  

Starting Points for Opera Studies at the Swiss Opera Studio 

In the last decades various internationally renowned opera houses have done pioneer work, so that opera is today an absolutely contemporary and challenging art form, showing truths and relationships about society life as well as everyday reality, and opera creatively combines different forms of expression unlike any other art form. Opera imaginatively creates spaces for visions, transgressions, dreams, hopes and yearning. Opera tempts the audience to start a voyage of discovery in worlds of sound and vision. These convictions drive the teaching and learning at the Swiss Opera Studio. The education provides students with dramatic as well as musical skills as a foundation for their work and also aims to spark their scenic creativity and artistic imagination. It enables students to face the wide range of artistic demands in their future professional life, from different directing styles to varying musical styles. They have to cope with these independently and become artistic personalities. All important elements of their education return in a concentrated form, in projects such as opera sketches, the opera workshop (a creative speciality of the Swiss Opera Studio) and, above all, with the staging of a full opera.

Opera Productions

Students regularly work on opera productions, which the Swiss Opera Studio develops and performs on the stages of the Theater Biel Solothurn. In recent years the following pieces were performed, among others: 

• Falstaff (Antonio Salieri)
• Il curioso indiscreto (Pasquale Anfossi)
• Così fan tutte (W. A. Mozart)
• Giulio Cesare in Egitto (G. F. Händel)
• Opernwerkstatt “Ariadne“
• Opernwerkstatt „Suor Angelica et autres soeurs“

Aptitude Test of the Swiss Opera Studio (Master of Arts in Specialized Music Performance Opera)

For the admissions procedure 4 arias from the individual applicant`s repertoire have to be prepared in different styles and languages, including an aria with recitative or a separate recitative. Furthermore, applicants have to perform a spoken text by heart (poem or dialogue in German, French or another language). The aptitude test may include some scenic and/or musical work, on the basis of the prepared arias or a short scenic improvisation.

Teaching Staff