Book excerpt: An opera singer must be both a complete musician and an actor. He or she must have the vocal technique to sing some of the most challenging music ever written, while also creating a believable character onstage. Despite the findings of the National Association of Schools of Music's 1984 study "The Education and Training of the Singer-Actor," the major-field curriculum for most vocal performance programs is devoted primarily to developing a student's singing voice and musicianship, with little or no curriculum dedicated to dramatic training. This document outlines a two-semester course in stage movement that is specifically designed for operatic performers. Through looking at the defining characteristics of this genre, current and historical approaches of dramatic training for the opera singer, as well as the demands of the current operatic industry, one will begin to see why the stage movement course outlined later in this document is both desirable and essential to the dramatic training of a young operatic performer.