The Talent Programme

Folkoperan’s newly established Talent Programme exists to develop the next generation of opera starrs, offering them professional development and creative encounters. The programme, which received support in the 2024 Signatur Programme, is unique in Sweden and aims to secure and broaden growth in the entire opera and music sector. It is aimed at young music students in primary school as well as newly singers, musicians and conductors newly graduated from Sweden’s music colleges.

 

Discovering and developing the opera stars of the future

Folkoperan’s Talent Programme functions as a springboard into working life that aims to create more jobs and develop the art of opera in terms of quality, quantity and depth. In this way, Folkoperan wants to reverse the current downward trend of drastically reduced employment opportunities for freelancers in musical theatre. Folkoperan is the people’s opera and strives to facilitate opportunities for more people to participate in Swedish cultural life. The programme considers the needs of the entire sector and aims to to attract a more heterogeneous group to get into playing music and eventually applying for one of the higher education programmes.

Patron of the Talent Programme is the international opera star Nina Stemme.

 

2024 Folkoperan Talents

Opera singers:

Lovisa Huledal – mezzo-soprano, singer in The Noise of Time and The White Horse.

Viktor Rydén – baritone, singer in Cinderella.

Joakim Larsson – baritone, singer in Cinderella and The White Horse.

Clara Gunge – soprano, singer in The White Horse.

Conductors:

Teo Hillberg and Martin Thorell.

Musicians:

Johannes Carlsson, musician, appears in The White Horse and Sir Arne’s Treasure.

Young orchestra students aged 12-17 from Kulturskolan’s orchestra school/El Sistema.

 

Other sponsors of the Talent Programme, apart from Signatur, include the Swedish Arts Council, the Olle Engkvist Foundation and The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation.

Private gifts from Unni Trolle, Karl Otto Bonnier and others.