ABOUT US
The GO Academy! Borderless Opera Lab involves talents Under 35, from all over the world and intends to develop as a significant laboratory for the next generation of European musical theatre within a new high-level cultural and educational centre in the field of live performance.
The venue is in the historic centre of Gorizia and the activities start, not coincidentally, on the eve of the celebration of Nova Gorica and Gorizia as European Capital of Culture, the first cross-border one.
With this project, the Piccolo Opera Festival Cultural Association, within which the Academy was born, is pursuing the goals of the PNRR and New Generation EU, as part of the GO! 2025 cultural strategy.
A new international hotbed of young artists and technicians, the Academy offers two training courses lasting one year each (October 2024/May 2025 and October 2025/May 2026), free of charge.
A Singing course -which includes, among others, classes in Vocal Technique, Opera and Chamber repertoire, Stage Art, Physiology and Hygiene of the Phonatory Apparatus, as well as masters on particular composers (in 2025 a master's degree on Rossini's repertoire is planned in collaboration with the Rossini Opera Festival).
A course in Stage Management - Director's Office and Stage Direction module - with classes in Formal Analysis and Score Reading, History of Theater, History of Musical Theater, History of Stage Direction, Theoretical and Practical Elements of Stage Direction, and many others.
Students, all under 35, can learn theoretical notions and gain classroom experience so that their competence is as comprehensive and all-around as possible, with respect to the many variables of the craft. This allows the young talents to approach the work experience-which already becomes real with the 200 hours of field internship offered by the course-with more tools and awareness, forming motivated, high-level professionals.
Both programs include 600 hours of total training, roughly 400 hours of didactics and 200 hours of internships. Classes are held from October to April while ´project work´ is scheduled from May to July: this is the definition of Internships, as they involve the students in field experiences, in cooperation with theatres and musical institutions in the region and neighbouring Slovenia.
In particular, it was agreed that there might be possibilities for activities and internships at opera houses The Giuseppe Verdi Opera House Foundation in Trieste and the Slovenian National Theatre in Ljubljana, which both agreed to host particularly deserving Academy students with internships within their respective artistic programs.
The students, several of whom are already at an excellent stage of preparation, include a wide variety of nationalities: in addition to Italy, they come from Japan, Kazakhstan, China, Israel, Spain, Russia, and Slovenia.
