The Young Artists Opera Program was set up at the Bolshoi Theatre in October 2009. For two years young singers and pianists from Russia and the CIS countries, selected on the basis of auditions, are coached in different disciplines, including voice studies, stage movement and acting skills, foreign languages and most important – attendance at master-classes given by famous singers and repetiteur-coaches. Each of the Programme participants is also provided with plenty of opportunity to perform on stage, singing supporting roles in the Theatre's current productions and understudying the Opera Company's lead singers. Concert work is another important part of their training.
The Bolshoi Theatre Young Artists Opera Program goal is to nurture a new generation of Russian singers matching up to world standards, strengthen the position of the Russian school of singing in the world at large and to train a new intake for work at the Theatre itself. Working with the Young Artists Program participants for a two-year period are major international coaches and singers/major international coaches, singers and conductors: cooperating with the Young Artists Opera Programme in the 2009/10 season were singers Makvala Kasrashvili, Evgeny Nesterenko, Irina Bogacheva, Laura Claycomb (USA), Joan Rodgers (Great Britain), Deborah York (Great Britain); coaches Svetlana Nesterenko, Lyubov Orfenova, George Darden (USA), Gloria Guida Borrelli (Italy), Vito Maria Brunetti (Italy); conductors Antonello Allemandi (Italy), Christopher Moulds (Great Britain), Dmitri Jurowski.
Some alums of Bolshoi YAP became the members of Bolshoi opera ensemble: singers Venera Gimadieva, Konstantin Shushakov, Oleg Tsybulko, Olga Kulchynska, Yulia Mazurova, Andrei Jilichovschi, Alina Yarovaya, pianists - Pavel Nebolsin and Artem Grishayev.
Artists and graduates of the Young Artists Opera Program perform on the greatest stages of the world, such as Metropolitan Opera (USA), Royal Opera House (UK), Berliner Staatsoper and Deutsche Oper Berlin (Germany), Opera de Paris (France), Wiener Staatsoper (Austria) and others.
The Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Theatre Young Artists Opera Program is Dmitry Vdovin. The Program Chief Consultant is David Blackburn (USA).