CCM's Department of Opera is one of the most comprehensive and highly recognized training programs for opera singers, coaches, and directors in the United States. Opera at CCM integrates the highest standards in voice training and musical coaching with comprehensive and challenging dramatic preparation. The CCM Opera faculty consists of dedicated teaching artists who are also celebrated professionals in their own right, widely and currently active in their respective fields. CCM prepares and sends its students out into the profession ready to succeed. Leading national opera companies, young artist training programs, and festival representatives are invited every year to hold their fall auditions at the conservatory, and the Opera Department also hosts extensive master classes and residencies of nationally renowned performers, directors, coaches, artistic directors, and artists' managers, all of whom are prominent professionals working both in America and in Europe.<br>CCM is a college within the University of Cincinnati, a major undergraduate university and graduate research institution of more than 40,000 students. The synergy created by housing CCM within a comprehensive public university gives the college its unique character and defines its objective: to educate and inspire the whole artist and scholar for positions on the world's stage.