During a two-week intensive course in performing and visual arts, children sing together each morning to warm up their voices.
One day, they had the opportunity to warm up with an opera singer. Thomas Capobianco was in this very program as a kid.
A 2009 graduate of Scranton High School, the singer said the arts programs he had access to growing up helped him achieve his dream.
“I didn't really come out of my shell until I started here to be totally honest,” he said. “It was really all credit due to the amazing faculty that had been here and really, really encouraged me and saw the talent that I had that you know, my 16, 17-year old self didn't really grasp.”
The Lyceum
Formerly Arts Alive, the year-long arts program rebranded to The Lyceum School for Visual and Performing Arts a few years ago.
“I wanted it to have a school feel,” Executive Director Catherine Richmond-Cullen said. “It’s not a camp.”
The Lyceum is a year-long weekend school and two-week summer intensive. About 130 K-12 students enrolled in the summer program this year, which concludes with an exhibition and performance. They learn from professional artists in categories of theater, dance, visual arts, performance and, new this year, film.
“The artists are all trained to know and understand the Pennsylvania Department of Education Arts and Humanities standards,” Richmond-Cullen said. “We teach aesthetics, we teach critique, we teach historical and cultural context, and of course we teach art making.”
The program will celebrate 40 years in 2025. It’s a partnership between the Broadway Theater League, Arts in Education NEPA, and the Ballet Theater of Scranton, funded by the Pa. Council on the Arts, Spring Break for Autism, local school districts and more.
“The whole philosophy here is not to make opera singers out of these children,” Richmond-Cullen said. “It’s to help them find things in themselves that they can bring forth to the world and share with others, and to feel good about who they are, that’s the most important part.”
Making it to the Met
Joanne Arduino, artistic director for the performing arts school, recalled the first time she met Capobianco.
“He was very particularly professionally dressed. And he was only in high school, like a sophomore and he said, ‘I am T.J. Capobianco and I am going to be an opera singer,’” she recalled. “He opened his mouth and we said, ‘This man is going to be an opera singer.’”
Arduino and Richmond-Cullen are thrilled to know that Capobianco credits his success to their encouragement.
“The whole philosophy here is not to make opera singers out of these children,” Richmond-Cullen said. “It’s to help them find things in themselves that they can bring forth to the world and share with others, and to feel good about who they are, that’s the most important part.”
After graduating from Scranton High School, Capobianco studied music education and vocal performance at Temple University. He spent his summers back in Scranton and worked as an assistant for Arts Alive.
He earned his master’s degree at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and went on to work for opera companies in New Orleans, Des Moines, Baton Rouge and Louisville before finding his way to New York.
The tenor said his audition at the Metropolitan Opera in March 2019 came “out of nowhere.”
“I had been in Manhattan doing a workshop there. And my manager at the time … ended up getting me an audition at the Met,” he said. “About two months later, like May of 2019, I got a call from my manager saying you have an offer from the Met.”
The life of an opera singer
Capobianco says most of his days start with about six hours of rehearsal followed by a performance in the evening. He is involved in a handful of productions at a time.
“It truly never gets old every single time I walk out on that stage,” he said.
Known as 'the Met,’ the opera house in New York has 4,000 seats. The singers are accompanied by a live orchestra and no microphones.
“The acoustics are so beautiful and so wonderful,” Capobianco said. “They build these halls with opera singers in mind.”
Capobianco works as a full-time plan artist, with a contract from August until May. He described his debut performance in 2022 as “surreal.”
“It's thrilling. I mean, it's just so exciting to have this huge orchestra in front of you, this huge audience in front of you. And it's your moment,” he said. “It's a dream.”
The singer will perform at La Festa Italiana in Scranton on Saturday, September 1 at 5 p.m.
