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Named for Opera Theatre's founding board chairman, Leigh Gerdine, the Gerdine Young Artists receive extensive professional experience. In addition to chorus responsibilities they sing supporting roles and/or cover leading and featured roles in mainstage productions; enjoy extensive coaching; appear in challenging master classes with renowned artists like Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Marlena Malas, Phyllis Curtin, Evelyn Lear, Erie Mills, Jerry Hadley, Grace Bumbry, John Wustman, Sheri Greenawald, Lotfi Mansouri, Sherrill Milnes, Shirley Verrett, Colin Graham, James Robinson, and Stephen Lord; and appear in solo settings occasioned by OTSL's outreach presentations.
Former Gerdine Young Artists (starting from the left) Kristen Forrest Leich (Peep-Bo), Katherine Jolly (Yum-Yum) and Alison Tupay (Pitti-Sing) in The Mikado. Photo by Ken Howard
Gerdine Young Artists are hired on an AGMA contract and receive a weekly salary, round-trip transportation, a modest sustenance allotment and accommodations for the duration of their engagement.
Opera Theatre showcases outstanding young artists in an unusual small theater where audiences and critics alike have come to expect sophisticated, high-caliber productions. The company offers a mix of familiar and unconventional repertory, all sung in English and accompanied by members of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.
Visitors from forty-two states and seven foreign countries came to St. Louis for the spring season, as did writers from Opera News, Chicago Tribune, Opera Magazine, Financial Times, Dallas News, and Wall Street Journal among others. |