Carmen (Kate Aldrich) and Don Jose (Richard Troxell) in PORTopera's production of "Carmen," 2005. 
2005's "Carmen" (Kate Aldrich) and Don Jose (Richard Troxell). 
Rosina (Lauren McNeese) and her maid (Emily Marvosh) in 2007's "Il Barbiere di Siviglia." 
PORTopera's first-rate chorus in the chaotic end of Act 1, "Il Barbiere di
Siviglia," 2007. Russ Burleigh Photo. 
PORTopera’s Young Artists Program
PORTopera’s Young Artists Program Supports
Maine Singers Who Seek a Career in Opera
Shortly after PORTopera was founded in 1994, the company inaugurated a Young Artists Program. The program was designed to give young singers on the verge of careers an opportunity to be in a mainstage production with PORTopera and to perform in a separate traveling company in smaller opera productions given within the state of Maine. In 2000, then Artistic Director Bruce Hangen and Maine soprano, Ellen Chickering had another idea: With the wealth of singing talent developing in Maine through the University of Southern Maine School of Music and elsewhere, the program should be focused on singers who live in Maine, or attended school in Maine, or who had any other meaningful connection to the state.
The singers in the program perform in the mainstage production in the chorus or in other roles for which they are suited and present their own touring production of a smaller opera in various locations around the state. The program is directed by Ellen Chickering, a noted soprano herself and a member of the voice faculty in the USM School of Music.
