In the basement of the Seattle Opera office, amid scattered music stands on a wooden stage, a group of young people wander in from lunch. Wearing jeans and tennis shoes, some gather by the piano, others pick props out of boxes, and a few sing snatches from the opera they are about to rehearse. They are preparing for the fall tour of Seattle’s Young Artists Program, for which they will perform Mozart’s comedy “Cosi Fan Tutte.”

The Young Artists Program is a 20-week, performance-based training camp for opera singers in their 20s and 30s. Artists from all over the country audition for the program, and this year they are to perform at the Kirkland Performance Center at 8 p.m. on Nov. 15.

“This is the opera student’s residency,” said Aren Der Harcopian, the Young Artists program manager.

Seattle’s program is one of several around the country, he said, and it is very competitive. Of more than 640 applicants this year, only four new singers were accepted to the program for an overall total of 10 performers.

After auditions, the program’s staff selects operas to fit the cast they have to work with; this year they chose “Cosi Fan Tutte” for the fall and “Ariadne Auf Naxos” to be performed in the spring.

“We try to pick programs that best represent our singers. Once we pick the singers we love then we choose the opera,” he said.

“‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ was Mozart’s next-to-last opera and he was really firing on all cylinders,” said Benjamin Wayne Smith, director of the performance.

Smith said that, even though he thought this comedy was frivolous at first, after spending time working on the piece, he realized that there was depth to it, and the storyline about love and mistaken identity is relevant to our lives today.

“It’s sort of a combination of champagne and a very rich something else,” he said. “It’s very deep, bottomless music.”

Tenor Bray Wilkins agreed that this opera combines comedy with a complex musical score.

“It’s wild and crazy and convoluted,” he said. “It’s a really fun opera and the funny thing is this is probably the hardest, most technically challenging opera that I’ve done.”

Wilkins, who is to play Ferrando in the Kirkland performance, said that these challenges were part of the reason that opera is so exciting to be involved in.

“When it came to opera I found it was harder than anything I’ve ever done in my life,” he said. “It was insanely challenging, and I loved it.”

Another difficult part of this opera is that everything for the production has to be transported all over the state for the tour, according to Smith. This means that the props and costumes for the performance are to be very simple.

“The challenge and the virtue of this sort of bare-bones production is the storytelling has to be really clear,” Smith said. “The challenge and big advantage are the same thing, and that is there’s nothing to hide behind.”

He said, though, that the cast he has to work with is exceptional, and putting together “Cosi Fan Tutte,” an opera about young lovers, with a group of young singers was particularly fitting.

“It’s great because we all are hungry and young and eager to put our best foot forward,” Smith said.

But part of the reason for that enthusiasm is that making a name for yourself as an opera artist can be very difficult.

“Some of them will have amazing successes, some will have moderate ones, and some will not,” said Harcopian of the young artists. “You have to be great to make it in the world of opera.”

Still, he added, there is something about opera that keeps singers, directors and everyone else entranced.

“For me at least it’s a magical world, this world of opera, when everything comes together,” he said. “You cannot not like it or not care for it and do what you do.”

Ticket information: 425-893-9900 or visit www.seattleopera.org

Katie Schmidt is a journalism student in the University of Washington’s News Lab.