The Programme was launched in September 2001. Six singers were put forward by agents and others in the opera world, and then chosen from auditions in late 2000/early 2001. Since then, auditions by application have been held annually in November and December to select new intakes to start the following September. Each singer is contracted for two years and as such, every season half of singers on the Programme are in their first year while the other half is in their second.
The first music staff auditions were held early in 2002, and a conductor and répétiteur selected to start in September 2002. Since then, music staff auditions have been held every other year to replace those leaving at the end of their two-year contract. A stage director position was created in 2002, with auditions taking place every two years. Since 2008, there has been the option of appointing a conductor or pianist to work mainly with The Royal Ballet.
The following artists have been members of the Programme so far:
Dušica Bijelić, Vlada Borovko, Francesca Chiejina, Jennifer Davis, Anna Devin, Lauren Fagan, Susana Gaspar, Anush Hovhannisyan, Kiandra Howarth, Ana James, Kishani Jayasinghe, Ha Young Lee, Haegee Lee, Pumeza Matshikiza, Sally Matthews, Elisabeth Meister, Simona Mihai, Eri Nakamura, Victoria Nava, Madeleine Pierard, Marina Poplavskaya, Gweneth-Ann Rand, Jacquelyn Stucker, Ailish Tynan, Katie Van Kooten, Yaritza Veliz, Anita Watson
Aigul Akhmetshina, Tove Dahlberg, Emily Edmonds, Justina Gringyte, Liora Grodnikaite, Ekaterina Gubanova, Hanna Hipp, Nadezhda Karyazina, Rachel Kelly, Monika-Evelin Liiv, Kai Rüütel, Angela Simkin, Hongni Wu
Russell Harcourt, Patrick Terry
Thomas Atkins, Pablo Bemsch, Alfie Boe, David Butt Philip, Steven Ebel, Alexander James Edwards, Hubert Francis, Robert Anthony Gardiner, Luis Gomes, Andrew Kennedy, David Junghoon Kim, Ji Hyun Kim, Konu Kim, Nikola Matišić, Edgaras Montvidas, Robert Murray, Ji-Min Park, Samuel Sakker, Andrew Sritheran, Haoyin Xue
Dawid Kimberg, Michel de Souza, Grant Doyle, Jared Holt, Jacques Imbrailo, Samuel Dale Johnson, Changhan Lim, Gyula Nagy, Ashley Riches, Dominic Sedgwick, Yuriy Yurchuk, ZhengZhong Zhou
Germán E. Alcántara, Daniel Grice, Darren Jeffery, Michael Mofidian, Kostas Smoriginas, Krzysztof Szumanski
Robert Gleadow, Lukas Jakobski, Jihoon Kim, Vuyani Mlinde, James Platt, Matthew Rose, Simon Shibambu, David Shipley
Greg Eldridge, Harry Fehr, Rodula Gaitanou, Thomas Guthrie, José Dario Innella, Gerard Jones, Tomasz Konina, André Heller-Lopes, Noa Naamat, Pedro Ribeiro, Vera Petrova
Catriona Beveridge, Timothy Burke, Nick Fletcher, Michele Gamba, Oliver Gooch, Andrew Griffiths, James Hendry, Adrian Kelly, Volker Krafft, Rory Macdonald, Patrick Milne, Steven Moore, Geoffrey Paterson, Jean-Paul Pruna, Jonathan Santagada, Susanna Stranders, Daniele Rustioni, Edmund Whitehead, Paul Wingfield, Yuval Zorn
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