In keeping with our strategic goal of reducing financial barriers to participation, ORP utilizes a pay-what-you-can tuition model with several levels of financial contribution. Our tuition levels are already very reasonable, offering excellent value for the high quality MN-based experience that singers currently get in the reading process, but we also know that we can’t make assumptions about where singers’ financial needs truly lie. As such, we would like to put the decision in your hands and trust you to make the most informed decision for yourself and your finances. Pay-what-you-can tuition is the next step in our ultimate goal towards ORP being able to go fully tuition-free. We hope this intermediate step will allow us to open our doors to even more of the deserving singers in our MSP music community.

We will offer four categories of payment for our piano-accompanied readings, utilizing the Role Size Classifications (determined according to AGMA guidelines). You can read further details and see the current tuition bracket here.

Role tuition rates include rehearsals, musical direction and the final reading performance. This season we have increased the overall number of rehearsals for a reading and moved to a flexible rehearsal model. The number of rehearsals during a reading period time window varies by work and is determined by what is appropriate to the duration, cast size and difficulty of the repertoire. Not everyone is called to all rehearsals or all parts of rehearsals. The amount of rehearsals one is called to and time spent at rehearsal depends on role size. Generally between five and seven rehearsals take place per reading.

You have the freedom to coach and fully prepare your role with whomever you would like to in advance of the first rehearsal (as is the usual protocol in the professional opera world) and this allows us to delegate more time and flexibility to the rehearsal process. The ORP Music Director is available for privately paid coaching as desired or you can prepare with your own coach. Individual role coachings are not included in the role tuition fee. It is the singer’s responsibility to fully prepare the role and be ready for detail-oriented work in rehearsals.