Lyric Arts France
Festival Opéra Bastide
June 24 - July 29, 2024
Lyric Arts France is a professional training and performance-centered Young Artists Program for emerging professional singers, giving a wide variety of solo performance opportunities for all participants. Located in the Aveyron region of southwestern France, in the lovely mediaeval town of Villefranche-de-Rouergue, Lyric Arts France is part of Festival Opéra Bastide, a new international summer festival. This festival is put on in collaboration with L’Association Les Arts en Bastide Royale and includes several concerts of French Art Song, opera, public masterclasses, a variety of other vocal music, and a full opera production with orchestra.
Artists work in collaboration with world-class singers, directors, conductors, coaches, and choreographers, both in production rehearsals and in training sessions. These include individual and group vocal and repertoire coaching, masterclasses, auditioning classes, and career seminars addressing opportunities in Europe and the United States. There is also a focus on singing in French, French arias, and Art Song.
Most activities take place in the ‘Bastide Royale,’ the historic mediaeval center of the old town, including in its charming theater, a spectacular baroque chapel, and the main town square. In addition to an abundance of public performance engagements, the program offers a marvelous opportunity for participants to enrich their understanding of French music, culture, and language, to live and work in the heart of France for five weeks, and to broaden their knowledge of French and European opera and vocal literature.
Join us this summer to celebrate opera and French music - as a professor, crew member, volunteer, or member of the audience - in the exceptional setting of the Royal Bastide of Villefranche-de-Rouergue.
“My goal is to reach out across traditional lines of demarcation in the arts, presenting works which engage diverse, new and younger audiences, bringing in supporters of music, theater, dance and the visual arts, for high-quality productions of French works, old works done in new ways, and new works. Our festival features a company of performers including top national and regional French singers, and rising stars from around the world in its international Young Artists Program.”
Jonathan Eaton, Artistic Director
