Bring Italian Studies expertise into your program, studio, or production
Specialist Italian language, linguistics, literature, history, and text preparation for conservatories, Young Artist Programs, opera companies, summer intensives, and voice studios.
Most programs address Italian preparation in fragments. Language courses cover contemporary Italian. Diction instruction covers pronunciation. Coaching covers musical and dramatic choices. As language programs are cut and some institutions have eliminated Italian entirely, those fragments are further apart than ever.
The preparation singers actually need sits at an intersection that neither music departments nor modern language departments are structurally positioned to reach: Italian linguistics, literary and cultural history, the poetic and theatrical traditions of the vocal repertoire, and the practical demands of performance, brought together in a single integrated preparation.
That intersection is what Lingua & Libretto was built for. Doctoral-level Italian language and literature, a PhD minor in musicology, university-level teaching experience, and active opera performance experience make it possible to offer something no single department can provide on its own.
Ready to bring this expertise into your program?
Institutional and studio engagements are available for any of the following:
Who this is for
Conservatories, universities, and music programs
Specialist Italian instruction, guest sessions, or production-specific libretto work outside the regular curriculum
As language programs are cut and diction instruction is reduced, the need for rigorous, performance-oriented Italian preparation has not diminished. This work fills that gap without requiring a full course redesign or additional faculty hire. It gives students access to the linguistic depth, literary context, and historical grounding that standard curricula no longer have room to provide.
Young Artist Programs and opera companies
focused Italian text preparation before rehearsals
Rehearsal time is expensive and limited. Singers who arrive at the first rehearsal with a thorough, historically informed understanding of the text make rehearsals more productive for everyone in the room. Production-specific preparation that examines every scene, every character relationship, and every rhetorical pressure point through the Italian gives your artists a foundation that shows in the work.
Summer intensives and training programs
concentrated Italian language and text work as part of a broader preparation
A focused workshop or short residency delivers genuine depth in Italian sound, text, and literary context within the intensive's timeframe, giving participants a method they can apply to any repertoire they prepare long after the program ends.
Voice teachers and studio instructors
reliable specialist support for students preparing Italian repertoire
Whether through a guest studio class, a workshop, or a standing referral arrangement, this work is designed to complement what you are already doing with your students. It addresses the linguistic and literary dimensions of the text that studio time rarely has room to cover in depth, so your students arrive at lessons and coachings with a stronger foundation and more specific questions.
If your program or studio sits somewhere between these descriptions, an inquiry is still welcome. Engagements are shaped around the specific need rather than fitted to a fixed template.
Italian Studies in service of performance
Sessions and residencies are scoped to your program, production, or studio.
The work draws on any combination of the following:
Italian phonetics and pronunciation: the specific sounds, patterns, and distinctions that are consistently difficult for non-native speakers, rooted in the historical vocal repertoire
Italian linguistics and literary tradition: how the language works as a system, how it has changed across periods, and the poetic, rhetorical, and theatrical traditions that shape opera, oratorio, and art song
Grammar, syntax, and text structure: formal and informal address, pronoun use, word order, poetic inversion, and how delayed syntax shapes emphasis and breath
Recitative and libretto conventions: how to prepare recitative specifically rather than generically, and what operatic Italian is doing that contemporary Italian is not
Production-specific text analysis: every scene, every character, every moment where the dramatic stakes are highest.
All sessions connect language and literary analysis to performance use, and are designed to complement what voice teachers, coaches, and directors are already doing.
Available engagements
Lingua & Libretto is available for a range of institutional and studio engagements, including:
Guest lectures and studio classes for voice departments, opera programs, and conservatories
Workshop residencies of two to four sessions built around a theme, a repertoire set, or a sequence of foundational skills
Production-specific libretto preparation before or during rehearsals for opera companies, YAPs, and university productions
Ongoing arrangements with voice programs, YAPs, and conservatories that want regular Italian studies preparation integrated into the teaching calendar
Intensive programs and summer workshops that want concentrated Italian language, linguistics, and text work as part of a broader preparation curriculum
Studio arrangements with independent voice teachers who want reliable specialist support for students preparing Italian repertoire
All engagements are scoped and priced after an initial inquiry. There is no fixed template. The format, duration, depth, and scheduling are shaped around what your program, production, or studio actually needs.
The expertise behind the work
Most Italian language teachers have never worked inside opera performance. Most diction coaches know pronunciation but have not studied the libretto as literature, linguistics, and rhetoric. Most opera coaches know the repertoire deeply but may not have doctoral-level command of Italian as a poetic, grammatical, and historical system.
Lingua & Libretto was founded by Renée Anne Poulin, PhD, to work directly inside that gap.
Dr. Poulin holds a doctorate in Italian language and literature with a research focus on the early opera libretto, a PhD minor in musicology, and native French fluency. She has taught Italian and French at the university level across multiple institutions in the US and Canada, co-directed a study abroad program in Tuscany, and performed as a violinist in opera productions. That combination of linguistic, literary, musicological, and performance experience is what makes it possible to serve singers, programs, and productions at the level this work requires.
How to inquire
Fees are determined by engagement type, scope, duration, and delivery format. There is no published price list for institutional work because no two engagements are identical.
The inquiry form is the right first step. Describe your program, your singers, the repertoire or production context, and your timeline. The form takes about two minutes. A response follows within 3 business days. Once the scope and context are clear, a discovery call is scheduled and a fee proposal follows promptly.
For programs with budget constraints or grant-funded residency structures, those details are welcome in the initial inquiry.