Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Every year, in late spring, more than 30 young opera singers converge on Vienna — the one in Virginia — to train at the national park for the performing arts called Wolf Trap.
Half are Filene Artists, named for the Boston department store family of Catherine Filene Shouse, who gave Wolf Trap Farm to the nation in 1966. The other half, a few years younger on average, are Studio Artists, current college and conservatory students or recent graduates.
Next Wednesday, July 9, at 7 p.m., all 16 of this year’s Studio Artists will perform in Georgetown at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, 1315 36th St. NW. Admission is free and no reservations are needed. Limited free parking is available at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, 1524 35th St. NW.
“We are so proud that Holy Trinity has become a home-away-from-home for the Wolf Trap Opera Studio Artists,” said Matthew Ogden, co-director of music at Holy Trinity. “It is a truly thrilling experience to be present in the space at Holy Trinity and hear the building itself begin to sing in resonance with the powerful voices of these incredible artists.”
Their names (in alphabetical order): Timothy Anderson, Nathaniel Bear, Chandler Benn, Adam Catangui, Catherine Creed, Robert Frazier, Cole Harvey, Francesca Herrera, Madison Kavanaugh, Ayanna Lewis, Aria Minasian, Søren Pedersen, Clara Reeves, Julianna Smith, Naomi Steele and Atticus Rego.
Mezzo-soprano Rosario Armas — then a Wolf Trap Opera Studio Artist, now a Yale School of Music student — performs in 2023 at Holy Trinity in Georgetown. Courtesy Wolf Trap Opera.
The July 9 concert, the third annual performance at Holy Trinity, is part of Wolf Trap’s “Untrapped” series at non-Vienna venues. Accompanied by Coaching Fellows Julian Garvue, Pei-Hsuan Lin and Vladimir Soloviev, the Studio Artists — four sopranos, four mezzo-sopranos, four tenors, two baritones, one bass-baritone (Frazier) and one bass (Rego) — will sing a varied program featuring arias and scenes from Wolf Trap Opera’s 2025 season. In the three mainstage productions, the Studio Artists play small roles, sing in the chorus and cover roles sung by Filene Artists.
The season began in June with five performances of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” in the Barns, a 382-seat theater constructed in conjoined 18th-century barns relocated by Shouse from upstate New York. “Dialogues of the Carmelites,” Francis Poulenc’s 1956 opera, set during the French Revolution, will be presented in the Barns on Friday evening, July 18; Sunday afternoon, July 20; Thursday afternoon, July 24; and Saturday evening, July 26.
The closing production, in the Filene Center, Wolf Trap’s 7,028-seat (not counting the lawn) amphitheater, will be the ever-popular “Carmen” — the success of which composer Georges Bizet didn’t live to see — on Friday evening, Aug. 15.
Launched in 1971, the year the center opened, Wolf Trap Opera is one of several top U.S. residency programs, along with Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artists program, the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann program, Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Center, Houston Grand Opera’s Butler Studio and San Francisco Opera’s Merola program.
More than 700 singers have participated over the years; among Wolf Trap Opera’s high-profile alumni are Stephanie Blythe, Lawrence Brownlee, Michelle DeYoung, Christine Goerke, Denyce Graves, Nathan Gunn, Alan Held, Eric Owens and Dawn Upshaw.