The scope of the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy (COSI) program does not begin and end at offering performing opportunities. Nor is it only an outlet for language training or advancing vocal studies. The multifaceted six-week summer program in Sulmona, Italy, offers everything a singer needs to successfully transition into the professional world, says Artistic Director Darryl Edwards.
Edwards, who is also associate professor of voice at the University of Toronto, says singers learn skills they might not go into the program expecting to learn. “Learning how to work with the professional protocols of stage management, building a role throughout the layers of skills that culminate in successful performances, and even experiencing such things as the interpersonal process of costume fittings—they are all important aspects of managing yourself within the larger picture.”
The larger picture at COSI is to provide the best training possible for attendees.
Learning
As a summer pay-to-sing and study program, COSI provides singers with a weekly 45-minute voice lesson plus a minimum of two 45-minute coachings. “If a need arises in their learning,” Edwards says, “we provide extra attention for their successful outcome.”
Attendees also have access to classrooms with pianos for practicing outside of lessons, coachings, and masterclasses. COSI faculty members lead the masterclasses and topics vary according to each teacher’s specialty as well as what the participating singer and collaborative pianist specifically need to work. “Each faculty member is chosen because they are superb opera educators, trainers, and artist builders,” Edwards says.
Past masterclasses have “never failed to fascinate and inspire,” according to Edwards. Giuseppe Finzi, resident conductor of San Francisco Opera, “taught a baritone (and all of us) a tremendous amount about what Rossini actually wrote in his score for Il barbiere di Siviglia, compared to how it is often sung.”
Opera coach Nathalie Doucet conducted a masterclass in which she taught that a singer was to create “tremendous characterization through the accuracy of Italian lyric diction,” Edwards says. “Whether they begin in their best form or arrive at their best form, every singer and pianist brings an array of learning moments and artistic triumphs that are developed for the better.”
Providing Italian language study is a priority at COSI. “All participants are tested for their level at the beginning of the program, and we provide instruction for each level, from beginning to advanced,” Edwards says.
Soprano Katherine Whyte, who attended COSI during its second year in 2008, says studying Italian in Italy was the most valuable aspect of the program. “I had already studied Italian for two years in North America, but the five or so weeks that I spent in Sulmona was amazing for my Italian,” she says. “In North America, you learn new vocabulary or grammar, and more likely than not you won’t use it again until the next week, when you find yourself desperately trying to remember. In Sulmona, you would have Italian lessons and then go out into the town and have to use things you had just learned right away.”
Performing
Stage director James Marvel has been a member of the COSI faculty several times now since 2008. He says he was “immediately impressed by the quality and level of students the program was able to attract. Many of the singers have gone on to have major careers.”
He has returned to the program many times because he loves working with Darryl Edwards. “[He’s] the very best kind of leader,” Marvel says. “He has high standards and creates a supportive atmosphere for the faculty as well as the students.” Additionally, Marvel says, “Every aspect of the singer’s development is addressed in this comprehensive program.”
Marvel directed Così fan tutte at the summer 2015 program. Other operas he has directed at COSI include La bohème, The Elixir of Love, and Suor Angelica.
Soprano Katherine Whyte attended COSI during its second year. She had a principal role in the opera that year: Mimì in La bohème. She also performed in concerts in surrounding towns.
“It was at one of those concerts that I had an older man sitting behind me who sang along with everyone who got up on stage,” she says. “It was so fun because of the realization that to Italians, opera is their ‘pop’ music. It was a little intimidating to sing for such a knowledgeable audience, but really quite an honor and very exciting.”
Marvel says the full production performance opportunities are valuable because singers get to perform with orchestra.
For Whyte, COSI gave her an opportunity to “sing at what feels like a professional level with a safety net. It was a chance to get an amazing role under my belt and into my voice. We were coached and directed and helped along so that we could shine. The whole experience there was a bit like magic for all of us I think,” she says.
Participating in the IVC’s-Hertogenbosch Competition
In July 2016, Sulmona’s Maria Caniglia Opera House will be for the second time the location of a preliminary round of the International Vocal Competition ’s-Hertogenbosch competition.
Sulmona hosted a preliminary round of the 50th IVC in 2014. “We were pleased to have five singers, three of them COSI participants, be chosen to go on to the subsequent rounds in Holland,” Edwards says. “One of the singers, tenor Andrew Haji, went on to win the Grand Prize as well as the Audience Favorite and Young Jury prizes. At age 19, COSI’s mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo was reported as the youngest singer to have ever gone on to the subsequent round.”
COSI’s preliminary round in 2016 is open to anyone who wishes to participate, by registering online at
www.ivc.nu.
“The preliminary round is important because it is a tangible point of access for young singers to a professional worldwide forum,” Edwards says. “They can see it—and see themselves in it. It can happen for them.”
Living
Sulmona, in the Abruzzo region of Italy, has a population of about 25,000, and COSI’s campus is in the heart of the city. Accommodations, performance venues, and classrooms are all within walking distance of each other, Edwards says. “It’s centuries old with current Wi-Fi, and Sulmona is just the right size to be ever fascinating, yet not so alluring that there isn’t the time to focus on the operatic training.
“COSI Executive Director Tania Puglielli has helped us develop wonderful bonds with Sulmona’s community and in the communities outside Sulmona where we travel annually to perform,” Edwards continues.
Marvel agrees that Sulmona is a great location for COSI. “Sulmona is a beautiful city that gives the students an authentic Italian experience,” he says.
Applying
Live auditions are held throughout Canada and in New York City every year. All programs, except Opera Chorus, require a live audition—though long-distance applicants may send a recorded audition. Edwards says about 75 percent of applicants are accepted to COSI, but he notes that they are not always offered their choice of program.
“It is about incrementally building on what each singer does well, while bolstering skills that are less developed,” he says. “This would mean something different for each singer: a specialized assignment in the opera scenes program, a place in the chorus, a leading role in a main production or a small role. The ideal need varies for every singer.”
There are usually between 50 and 60 singers, six collaborative pianists, one or two intern conductors, one or two intern directors, two production assistants, and four to six stage management interns at COSI.
Tuition, collected in Canadian dollars, ranges from 1,900 CAD for the COSI Academy, for singers and pianists ages 17–19, to 5,775 CAD for the Opera Ensemble program. Included in the cost are housing, all learning and performing opportunities, Italian language courses, and bodywork sessions.
Edwards suggests that to get the most out of what COSI has to offer, attendees should be “well prepared, curious, a generous colleague to others, and eager to keep building on their own goals while mindfully taking feedback.” As with any training program that takes a singer away from their primary teachers and coaches, new and different information should be received in a positive manner while staying true to what the singer has learned thus far.
Singers should go into the program curious about appropriate repertoire, career path, Young Artist Programs, networking, and much more. Edwards also says that “learning the unspoken codes of ‘how to play well with others’ is very important in thriving at your best level of singing.”
To learn more about the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy, visit www.co-si.com.
