Occupational Training for Professions of Performing Arts

CFA on-the-job training for skilled professions within the Opera and Orchestra

The Centre de formation d'apprentis (CFA) Métiers des arts de la scène develops the professional training activities of the Opéra national de Lorraine. It offers sandwich courses in higher education in opera, orchestra and performing arts in general.

The professional diploma for communications and the promotion of artistic creativity

In partnership with the University of Lorraine, the CFA offers a general training programme combined with practical training in the form of an apprenticeship or a professional training contract. The CFA complements the training received in the workplace. This professional diploma fully meets the challenges of entering the workforce in the skilled trades which underpin the performing arts.
Depending on an individual’s career path, the apprentice follows one of two professional diploma courses:

1. The course for Opera-related professions, which offers training for one of the four positions below:
- Stage manager
- Orchestra manager
- Production manager
- Music librarian

2. Or the course for interfacing and liaising with audiences and partners in the performing arts, offers training for :
- Public relations officer

Since 2008, the year the CFA was set up, more than 280 young people have graduated from the CFA with degrees from the University of Lorraine, and more than 150 employers throughout France have worked with conviction alongside us for their practical training: Théâtre des Célestins, Opéra de Dijon, Radio France, Opéra national de Paris, Orchestre de la Garde Républicaine, Cité musicale-Metz, Orchestre national de Lille, Opéra de Rouen, Opéra de Rennes, Opéra national du Rhin, Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg, Théâtre de la Manufacture CDN Nancy-Lorraine, Centre culturel André Malraux...

After the work-linked training scheme, an international work placement :

Since 2020, the CFA has enabled its alternating graduates to continue their training abroad by means of a long placement co-financed by the European Union's Erasmus+ programme. A real added value to the apprenticeship year, this experience is a great opportunity to perfect knowledge of the trade, open up to new professional practices, improve knowledge of the European professional network and, of course, improve language skills. The aim of this programme is to provide our work-study students with the best possible support in their professional integration.

The Palazetto Bru Zane in Venice, the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, the Théâtre royal de Liège, the European Polyphony Festival in Rhodes, the Royal Stockholm Orchestra and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra are just some of the employers who have taken on trainees since the programme was launched.