You don’t have to look very far in the UK’s opera world to find someone who started their career with BYO. Onstage, backstage, in the rehearsal room, the dressing room and in front of the orchestra – for more than 25 years we’ve been helping young people find their feet in the professional world.

about byo

what we do

BYO is the UK’s national training opera company, a place for young people who are in that awkward stage between education and proper working life where they can kick-start their careers. That’s what the ‘youth’ in our name refers to – not age, but the fact that our participants are all at the beginning of their lives in opera.

The way we help varies. For singers it might be big-stage experience for the first time and being seen by agents and casting directors. For directors, designers and conductors it might be mentoring, networking and the opportunity to create their own work. For stage manangers it might be industry contacts, work experience and technical learning.

More than 5,000 young people have benefitted from British Youth Opera’s training. Wherever you go in the opera world, you’re bound to fnd some BYO alumni, either backstage or on it.

widening access

Our Serena Fenwick programme develops the careers of people who can’t access more ‘traditional’ routes into their chosen careers for personal, financial or logisitcal reasons.

In 2024 our intake includes 15 young stage managers with little or no professional experience – they’ll leave the programme with everything they need to get their first stage management job.

Plus eight singers joined the programme from a diverse range of backgrounds, including care leavers, disabilities and caring responisbilities.

digital first

The next generation of singers, directors, designers, stage managers and music staff grew up online and so that’s where we are too.

BYO hub is our online training portal, offering online learning, career events and applications to BYO’s face-to-face programmes to tens of thousands of visitors each year.

new creative pathways

In 2023 we asked young opera directors, conductors and designers what they needed most to be able to grow their careers, and their answer was overwhelming – they needed opportunities to direct, conduct and design their own productions.

Our summer productions are created entirely by the young professionals on our programmes, with support, guidance and mentoring from some of the biggest names in opera. It’s a real and tangible way for young creatives to build and showcase their skills, launching them as ‘names to watch’ in the opera wolrd.

alumni

We’ve been serving the UK’s opera industry for over 30 years. And with hundreds of participants passing through our programmes every year, our alumni are everywhere – planning, creating and performing the work that keeps our opera scene vibrant and thriving. And they all built the foundations of their careers here at BYO.

selected alumni highlights

how we got here

BYO was started by British MP Denis Coe in 1987. He’d seen the work of National Youth Theatre and the way that it helped its participants thrive in an incredibly competitive industry. He set up BYO as a similar kind of 'bridge' organisation, to take what singers, directors, conductors and other young professionals had learnt at college or university and help them use it in a professional setting.

Our alumni singers include Peter Auty, Lucy Crowe, Rosemary Joshua, Katarina Karnéus, Sally Matthews, Christopher Maltman, Claire Rutter, Nicky Spence, Matthew Stiff, and Mark Stone. Alumni from our creative and technical programmes has gone on to work at the Royal Opera House, National Theatre, English National Opera and opera houses and theatres around the world.

who we are

  • Anna Patalong
    Chief Executive

    Charles Lewis
    Head of Communications

    Emily Louise Palmer
    General Manager

    Carla Pannett
    Development Associate

    Kezia Bienek
    Fundraising Ambassador

  • President
    Dame Sarah Connolly DBE

    Vice Presidents
    Dame Janet Baker CH
    Susan Bullock CBE
    Lucy Crowe OBE
    Chevalier Jose Cura
    Timothy Dean
    Edward Gardner OBE
    Professor Dame Jane Glover DBE
    Sir John Hannam
    Dame Felicity Lott
    Valerie Masterson CBE
    Hugh Merrill MVO
    Rt Hon Baroness Perry of Southwark
    Peter Robinson
    Nicky Spence OBE
    Sir John Tomlinson CBE

  • Chairman
    Sir Richard Greenhalgh

    Trustees
    Claire Barnett-Jones
    Richard Brooman
    Julia Burbach
    Holiday Donaldson
    Tessa Marchington
    James McNaught-Davis
    John Richards
    John Rothenberg
    Jennifer Smith
    Simon Spence KC
    John Sunnucks
    Toby Young

  • 29 May 1961 Charitable Trust
    The D'Oyly Carte Charitable Trust
    The Fenton Arts Trust
    The Fidelio Charitable Trust
    Foyle Foundation
    The Garrick Charitable Trust
    GC Gibson Charitable Trust
    Idlewild Trust
    The Leche Trust
    The Rowlands Trust
    Stichting Horizon
    Vaughan Williams Foundation