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Meeghan Shillington as Queen of the Night in one of York's opera workshop casts performing The Magic Flute
You don’t have to stray from the Keele campus to put some magic into your summer.
Rising young singers in York’s first Professional Opera Training Workshop will take centre stage in a fresh new production of Mozart's beloved opera, The Magic Flute, running for five performances – July 11, 12, 13, 14 and 17 – in the McLaughlin Performance Hall.
But get your tickets right away: the Saturday, July 12, performance is already sold out.
These performances are the culmination of a four-week intensive training program for professional singers, featuring master classes by such luminaries as internationally acclaimed vocalists Catherine Robbin and Russell Braun, Opera Atelier's Marshall Pynkoski, vocal coach and CBC radio personality Stuart Hamilton and actor/director Tom Diamond.
Directed by Stephanie Bogle, with musical direction and piano accompaniment by Brahm Goldhamer, this fully staged production will be sung in German with spoken dialogue in English.
With this year's focus on Mozart's The Magic Flute, the workshop program includes instruction in German diction as well as English dialogue and acting, aria, interpretation, classical movement and dance, vocal expression and staging. 
Right: composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The Faculty of Fine Arts’ Professional Opera Training Workshop – a pilot project running from June 16 to July 17 – has attracted 26 participants from as far afield as Vancouver and St. John's, Newfoundland.
The workshop is the brainchild of soprano Stephanie Bogle, who has been teaching part-time in the Department of Music's classical vocal program for a couple of years, and department Chair Michael Coghlan. It is an intensive course that offers advanced singers the opportunity to experience the creative process involved in the production, rehearsal and performance of a complete opera. Participation is by audition.
Curtain rises at 7:30pm. Admission is $12 at the door. For more information, call York’s Department of Music at ext. 55186.