Mas­ter of Ope­ra and Voice

Gra­dua­tes of the Mas­ter of Ope­ra and Voice ac­qui­re the skills they need to be suc­cess­ful pro­fes­sio­nal sin­gers. The HfMDK Frank­furt of­fers a wide ran­ge of cour­ses, from spe­ci­fic work­shops on sty­listic or per­for­mance as­pec­ts to full ope­ra per­for­man­ces in front of an au­di­ence. Clo­se coope­ra­ti­on with the re­gi­on's sta­ges and thea­ters, in par­ti­cu­lar the Hes­si­an Thea­t­re Aca­de­my (HTA), is an in­te­gral part of the cour­se and is sup­ple­men­ted by re­gu­lar pro­fes­sio­nal au­di­tions. Stu­dents ac­qui­re a pro­found vo­cal tech­ni­que and skills in va­rious gen­res of mu­si­cal thea­ter.

De­epen your own in­te­rests in the elec­tive area

The cen­tral ele­ment of the cour­se is a clo­se com­bi­na­ti­on of con­tent from the are­as of sin­ging, sce­nic pre­sen­ta­ti­on, body work, mu­si­cal (en­sem­ble) work, in-depth (for­eign lan­guage) ac­com­p­ani­ment and the tea­ching of dra­ma­tur­gi­cal con­tent know­ledge. They are usual­ly ex­pres­sed in a pu­blic per­for­mance for­mat. In ad­di­ti­on, the­re is a wide ran­ge of elec­tives in which stu­dents can con­ti­nue their edu­ca­ti­on ac­cord­ing to their in­di­vi­du­al in­te­rests. This also in­clu­des pe­dago­gi­cal, con­cert and sty­listi­cal­ly spe­cia­li­zed cour­ses (ear­ly and con­tem­pora­ry mu­sic). Stu­dents can de­epen their in­te­rests in the field of con­tem­pora­ry mu­sic (in coope­ra­ti­on with the IzM) and/or his­to­ri­cal in­ter­pre­ta­ti­on prac­tice (in coope­ra­ti­on with the HIP de­part­ment).

Net­wor­king, sup­port and team tea­ching

The per­so­nal and in­di­vi­du­al sup­port of stu­dents is also en­su­red through va­rious team tea­ching for­mats and through a clo­se ex­chan­ge bet­ween tea­chers and stu­dents.

By de­ve­lo­ping com­pre­hen­si­ve skills, stu­dents are en­ab­led to ad­apt to the con­stant­ly chan­ging pro­fes­sio­nal field and to suc­cess­ful­ly con­tri­bu­te to the chan­ging mu­si­cal thea­ter land­s­cape both as so­loists and in en­sem­bles in all per­forming and mu­si­cal forms. Through the in­ten­si­ty, breadth and con­cep­tu­al com­bi­na­ti­on of cour­ses, pro­ject work and in­de­pen­dent stu­dy time, stu­dents are en­ab­led to take on re­spon­si­bi­li­ty in the va­rious fields of work.

In 2011, the vo­cal de­part­ment of the HfMDK was awar­ded the Hes­si­an Ex­cel­lence Pri­ze for Uni­ver­si­ty Tea­ching.

Note: We of­fer a Mas­ter Con­cert (Clas­si­cal Voice) for stu­dents who wish to be­co­me con­cert sin­gers.

Ad­mis­si­on to the Mas­ter of Ope­ra and Voice re­qui­res a de­gree from a uni­ver­si­ty of mu­sic or a com­pa­ra­ble uni­ver­si­ty in Ger­ma­ny or ab­road with a ma­jor in sin­ging or a com­pa­ra­ble de­gree, suf­fi­ci­ent know­ledge of the Ger­man lan­guage (B2 for non-na­ti­ve speakers), an ENT cer­ti­fi­ca­te and a pas­sed ap­ti­tu­de test.

ENT cer­ti­fi­ca­te

• The ENT cer­ti­fi­ca­te must be is­sued by a spe­cia­list in pho­niatrics and pro­ve the vo­cal phy­sio­lo­gi­cal sui­ta­bi­li­ty for a sin­ging cour­se.
• The ENT cer­ti­fi­ca­te must not be ol­der than six mon­ths at the time of ap­p­li­ca­ti­on.
• If you are un­ab­le to ob­tain the ENT cer­ti­fi­ca­te be­fo­re March 1, plea­se sub­mit it by e-mail by June 15.
• For­eign cer­ti­fi­ca­tes will also be ac­cep­ted, pro­vi­ded you en­c­lo­se a trans­la­ti­on into Ger­man.
• We may also ask you to sub­mit a pho­niatric cer­ti­fi­ca­te at a la­ter date.

The ap­ti­tu­de test for the Mas­ter of Ope­ra and Voice in­clu­des a di­gi­tal pre-selec­tion in ac­cordance with §11 of the ap­ti­tu­de test re­gu­la­ti­ons.

For the di­gi­tal pre­selec­tion, the fol­lo­wing must be sub­mit­ted as a vi­deo as part of the on­line ap­p­li­ca­ti­on:

• 3 ari­as (at least one of them sta­ged)
• Self-dis­clo­sure (1 to 2 mi­nu­tes): You sta­te your name, brief­ly in­tro­du­ce yours­elf and your mu­si­cal ca­re­er and de­scri­be your mo­ti­va­ti­on for stu­dy­ing for a Mas­ter's de­gree in Mu­sic Thea­ter at the HfMDK Frank­furt

Im­portant no­tes:

The pro­gram must be per­for­med from me­mo­ry.

Plea­se upload your vi­de­os to a strea­ming plat­form of your choice (e.g. You­Tube, Vi­meo, Clouds, etc.). The vi­de­os must be ac­ces­si­ble wi­t­hout a pass­word and must be able to be strea­med wi­t­hout down­loa­ding the file. Plea­se crea­te one vi­deo file per work. Plea­se sub­mit the links to the vi­de­os with your on­line ap­p­li­ca­ti­on.

We re­com­mend that you are un­der 28 ye­ars of age at the start of the Mas­ter's de­gree cour­se of Ope­ra and Voice.

The pro­gram can only be car­ri­ed out on the ba­sis of good lin­gu­is­tic com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on skills, which is why a good know­ledge of Ger­man is a pre­re­qui­si­te for the vo­cal pro­gram.

If you pass the di­gi­tal pre-selec­tion (see above), you will be in­vi­ted to the first at­ten­dance round, which will be car­ri­ed out un­ch­an­ged on the ba­sis of the full pro­gram.

The ex­ami­na­ti­on ta­kes place in two at­ten­dance rounds of ap­prox. 10 mi­nu­tes and 25 mi­nu­tes each and can the­re­fo­re ex­tend over several days. In each round, the com­mis­si­on selec­ts from the re­per­toire sub­mit­ted and, if ne­cessa­ry, per­forms sce­nic and/or mu­si­cal ex­er­ci­ses. If the sui­ta­bi­li­ty ap­pears pos­si­ble in the first round, an in­vi­ta­ti­on to the se­cond round will be ex­ten­ded.

In ad­di­ti­on, it will be che­cked on the ba­sis of files (aca­de­mic achie­ve­ments from the pre­vious cour­se(s)) whe­ther the ap­p­li­cant has suf­fi­ci­ent know­ledge of Ita­li­an. If not, the ex­ami­na­ti­on board may is­sue an ob­li­ga­ti­on to take fur­ther Ita­li­an cour­ses as part of the elec­tive area.

The com­mit­tee also de­ci­des on the al­lo­ca­ti­on to cour­ses with Ger­man pho­ne­tics and dic­tion, ba­sic sce­nic skills and ba­sic know­ledge of the In­ter­na­tio­nal Pho­ne­tic Al­pha­bet.

Fur­ther pro­vi­si­ons re­gar­ding the ap­ti­tu­de test and other ad­mis­si­on re­qui­re­ments are go­ver­ned by the ap­ti­tu­de test re­gu­la­ti­ons of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mu­sic and Per­forming Arts in their cur­rent ver­si­on.

A pro­gram con­sis­ting of the fol­lo­wing parts must be sub­mit­ted:

1. 4 ope­ra ari­as or sce­nes (in­clu­ding at least one aria with re­ci­ta­ti­ve and two ari­as with sce­nic pre­sen­ta­ti­on)
2. One duet, to be cho­sen from the list be­low: "Duet re­per­toire"
3. Two songs
4. A pre­pa­red pro­se text or a poem in Ger­man of a ma­xi­mum length of 3 mi­nu­tes, to be per­for­med from me­mo­ry and pre­sen­ted in a play­ful man­ner.

• The pro­gram must be per­for­med from me­mo­ry.
• The re­per­toire must be per­for­med in the ori­gi­nal lan­guage. In ad­di­ti­on to Ger­man, it should con­tain at least 2 other lan­guages
• Ope­ra ari­as and songs should co­ver at least 3 sty­listic pe­ri­ods, in­clu­ding
  • at least one com­po­si­ti­on by Mo­zart or Haydn
  • a com­po­si­ti­on af­ter 1970 or a work of the 2nd Vi­en­nese School (This re­fers to works com­po­sed (af­ter 1908) by the Se­cond Vi­en­nese School and its fol­lo­wers that are com­po­sed free-to­nal­ly or do­de­ca­pho­ni­cal­ly. In this sen­se, works com­po­sed be­fo­re 1970 by Mes­sia­en, Dal­la­pic­co­la and others are also ad­mis­si­ble).
• Sce­nic and mu­si­cal ex­er­ci­ses or im­pro­vi­sa­ti­ons, also in a group, as well as a dis­cus­sion will take place as de­ter­mi­ned by the ex­ami­na­ti­on board.

The Stu­dy and Ex­ami­na­ti­on Re­gu­la­ti­ons (SPO) set out the frame­work con­di­ti­ons and re­gu­la­ti­ons for your stu­dies. They ap­p­ly tog­e­ther with the Ge­ne­ral Re­gu­la­ti­ons (for Ba­che­lor's and Mas­ter's de­gree pro­gram­mes) or the SPoL (for tea­cher trai­ning de­gree pro­gram­mes). All ver­si­ons of the SPO for your de­gree pro­gram­me (in­clu­ding ear­lier ver­si­ons for stu­dents of pre­vious aca­de­mic ye­ars) can be found at Ex­ami­na­ti­ons.