Project Prima Volta: A decade of helping teenage voices soar

After a successful international career in opera, Pierard and Aparicio returned to Aotearoa in 2009 so she could star in the Auckland Philharmonia's Madame Butterfly.

In 2014, to "bring the world to Hawke's Bay", they founded the Project Prima Volta community programme.

Now, 30 Hawke's Bay teenagers take part in the classical opera programme each year, which involves 12 months of coaching and mentoring and a final performance.

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The inspiration for starting Prima Volta came from the late Dr Ian Prior, an arts patron who was active in supporting the Wellington Sculpture Trust and who supported the commissioning of work for many artists, Pierard said.

"Those to whom much is given, much is expected", she recalled Dr Prior telling her.

That fuelled her desire to share her knowledge and pass on the opportunities she was given to the next generation.

"There's no talent. Talent is really not a thing. It's actually about the intersection of opportunity and appetite. If those things happen, that's where the magic starts."

Opera was just one slice of the Project Prima Volta pie, she said - it also helped teenagers build confidence and self-esteem.

"I think the hardest thing to do in this world is to turn up, right? What we find with young people is that they do. And that's the hardest bit."

Pierard said it was a big thing to put a complete beginner - someone who may not consider themselves capable of singing or performing - in a room with an expert or master.

"Fundamentally, it's an important message to say to someone that 'You're totally worth my time, even though I've come here from another country - I'm going to spend time coaching you, even though you didn't know opera existed'."

Anna Pierard completed the Dutch National Opera Academy, a two-year master's programme in Amsterdam - and has starred as Hermia in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Zita in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi.