The Master of Music (Opera Performance) is a professional training program offering elite-level training for opera singers and répétiteurs, at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Australia’s oldest and most prestigious music institution.

Led by internationally renowned teachers with strong industry connections in the areas of opera, art song and early music performance, this course will connect you to the largest community of music students and academics in Australia.

This course is all about learning the craft of being an opera singer – doing, reflecting, and enacting a wide range of skills in a variety of repertoires. The two-year program includes intensive studies in vocal coaching, lyric diction for Italian, French and German language for opera, ensemble singing, role development, as well as acting and music performance research.

Students will have the opportunity to prepare specific roles and be actively engaged in performance opportunities – both in house and through industry placements with professional opera companies, in Australia and internationally.

With a focus on the Opera Performance Practicum, you will undertake intensive coaching on répétitoire, role development, and stage work.

Who is this course for?

This course provides elite-level training for opera singers and répétiteurs from the rehearsal stage through to full-scale operatic performance.

If you want to elevate your vocal performance, répétiteur and stagecraft skills, as well as explore acting and music research, and graduate with an internationally recognised qualification, this course is for you.

24 months full-time.

This is a 200 credit point program in four areas: Opera Performance Practicum, Core Skills in Opera, Research Studies and Supporting Studies.

This course includes specialist training provided to students through vocational placement in a professional opera company (e.g. Victorian Opera or Pinchgut Opera), or through performance in one of the University’s in-house opera productions.

Graduate pathways

Upon completion of the program, graduates can select to undertake further study in one of our research master degrees.

Connection to industry partnerships

The Master of Music (Opera Performance) provides extensive opportunities for aspiring professional opera singers to perform across a range of opera forms, and develop links with industry through placement opportunities.

The program provides an avenue to a career as a professional singer, and graduates have found employment with Opera Australia, Victorian Opera, and other local and international companies and ensembles.

Alumni success

The Melbourne Conservatorium is the catalyst for the development of some of Australia’s, and the world’s, best vocalists and opera performers. Since 2009, seven of the ten Herald Sun winners have been Faculty alumni. The exceptional tutelage offered at the Conservatorium goes some way to explaining this phenomenon. Our amazing staff include:

Anna Connolly, Senior Lecturer in Voice, has taught and prepared 86 finalists and 39 winners of every major competition in Australia over the past 25 years, including nine Herald Sun winners – artists who now work as guest soloists with state symphony orchestras and as principal artists and choristers for Australia’s opera companies.

Other prize-winning alumni taught by Connolly have gone on to stellar international careers as principal artists in the world’s great opera houses. Between them, Joshua Bloom, Nicole Car, Caitlin Hulcup and Derek Welton regularly perform with the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bolshoi Theatre Moscow, Opéra National de Paris, the Wiener Staatsoper, and the Bayreuth Festival.

Head of the Conservatorium’s Voice department, Stephen Grant, has taught Herald Sun Aria finalists Kristy Swift (winner in 2006) and Anthony Mackey (finalist in 2010), and others who have gone on to national and international opera work, including Christopher Tonkin, Christopher Field, Carlos Barcenas, Kirilie Blythman and (Head of the Faculty’s Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development) Tiriki Onus.

The crowning jewel in the Voice department is the new Master of Music (Opera Performance), a two-year degree that offers invaluable opera experience. The course, launched in 2019, is coordinated by Professor Jane Davidson, who also contributes direction to all of its productions, and is co-delivered with repetiteur Tom Griffiths, voice and diction specialist Linda Barcan, and consultant Patricia Price. The program includes training in repertoire, stagecraft, acting, languages and diction, and holds masterclasses with guest international artists and industry collaborators.

Simply put, the Melbourne Conservatorium is the catalyst for the development of some of Australia’s, and the world’s, best vocalists and opera performers.

In order to be considered for entry, applicants must have completed: An undergraduate degree in vocal performance or equivalent, with evidence of European modern language training in either

IELTS (academic English Only): 6.5 (no band less than 6.0)
TOEFL Internet-based test: 79 + ; Writing 21; Speaking 18; Reading 13; Listening 13;
Pearson Test of English Academic: 58 + no communicative skill below 50
Cambridge English: Advanced/ Certificate of Advanced English (CAE): 176 + no skill below 169.