(Credit: Arizona Opera)

Arizona Opera has announced its 2024-25 season Studio artists.

The company revealed that the artists for its 18th season of the Marion Roose Pullin Arizona Opera Studio include Peter Barber, Sam Krausz, Sedona Libero, Ava Linvog, Emma Marhefka, Vlad Soloviev, Madeleine Snow, and Yichen Xue.

The studio artists program bridges the gap between academic studies and a professional career and ranks among the most competitive training programs in the United States. The artists had to go through a rigorous audition process and will now receive personalized instruction that propels them to the next stages of their careers.

Barber is an American bass-baritone on has performed with the Arizona Opera and has built a YouTube audience of over 175,000 subscribers while Krausz is a tenor who has performed with the Des Moines Metro Opera and Wolf Trap Opera. Libero has performed at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Teatro Nuovo, and the Arizona Opera. Linvog performs with the Opera Omaha, North Carolina Opera, and the Janiec Opera Company and Marhefka has performed with Opera Tampa, Knoxville Opera, and Opera Roanoke. Soloviev has spent two seasons at the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio while Snow has collaborated with such artists as Ricky Ian Gordon and Ben Moore. Finally, Xue was the recipient of the Opera Index Competition’s Emerging Artist Award and, subsequently in 2024, received a Career Bridges grant.

The program has seen such artists graduate including Véronique Filloux, Caitlin Gotimer, Katrina Galka, Zachary Owen, and Laura Wilde.