Finalists Announced for International Opera Awards 2020

The International Opera Awards today announced the finalists for its 2020 Awards [Wednesday 5 February 2020]. The annual red-carpet event - which celebrates achievement in opera around the globe over the 2019 calendar year - recognises excellence in a wide range of categories that cover performance, design and direction as well as education and outreach.

Two opera companies top the 2020 shortlist with recognition in three categories each; Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Education & Outreach, New Production, World Premiere) and Teatro Real (Opera Company, Opera Orchestra, World Premiere). A number of leading opera companies have two nominations each: Royal Danish Opera (Chorus, Rediscovered Work), La Fenice (Education & Outreach, Opera Orchestra), Royal Opera House (New Production, Opera Company), La Monnaie (New Production, Opera Company), Bayerische Staatsoper (New Production, Opera Orchestra), Opera Vlaanderen (Chorus, Opera Orchestra) and Deutsche Oper (Chorus, World Premiere).

In the highly prized singer categories, the list of impressive finalists for Female Singer include soprano Lise Davidsen, who was shortlisted in the Young Singer category in 2017, alongside Maria Agresta, Christine Goerke, Kate Lindsey, Lisette Oropesa and Elza van den Heever. The finalists in the Male Singer category are Carlos Álvarez, Javier Camarena, Stephen Gould, René Pape, George Petean and Russell Thomas.

Conductor Finnegan Downie Dear, a former recipient of an Opera Awards Foundation bursary in 2015, is a finalist in the Newcomer category.

This is a particularly strong year for female composers in the World Premiere category with Raquel García-Tomás' Je suis narcissiste (Teatro Real), Elena Kats-Chernin's Whiteley (Opera Australia) and Ellen Reid's Pulitzer prize-winning work, p r i s m (Beth Morrison Projects) all shortlisted for the award.

Opera lovers from around the world are invited to vote in the Opera Magazine Readers' Award to select a winner from finalists including Ildar Abdrazakov, Cecilia Bartoli, Jamie Barton, Elīna Garanča, Jonas Kaufmann, Karita Mattila, Anna Netrebko, Erwin Schrott, Michael Spyres and Bryn Terfel. Voting opens today on the International Opera Awards' website and runs until Friday 27 March 5pm, GMT. Jonas Kaufmann, a firm favourite at the Awards having been the only artist to win two awards in one year, is up for the Reader's Award again, as is Jamie Barton, who won the Young Singer award in 2014.

The full list of finalists is detailed below.

The shortlist was compiled by an impressive international jury drawn from a range of backgrounds including critics, opera directors, conductors and designers, chaired by John Allison, editor of Opera magazine (the Founding Media Partner of the Awards) and classical music critic of The Daily Telegraph. The winners of all categories, except the Readers' Award, will also be decided by the jury.

John Allison, chair of the Jury, said:
"The huge number of nominations we received for the International Opera Awards is indication of the global interest in them. Spanning the world, the exciting list of finalists - chosen by our truly international jury - confirm the cosmopolitan nature of the art form and bear testimony to the incredibly vibrant work done by opera companies of all sizes everywhere."

The winners in all 18 categories are announced at a glittering Gala Event at London's Sadler's Wells on 4 May 2020, together with special awards for Philanthropy, Leadership and Lifetime Achievement. The Leadership Award is sponsored by the Good Governance Institute and World Premiere Award by The Vineyard.

Live performances from stars of the opera world are now a defining feature of the evening and have, in recent years, included memorable moments from such renowned singers as Anna Bonitatibus, Stuart Skelton, Lawrence Brownlee and Ermonela Jaho. This year, Roberto Alagna and Aleksandra Kurzak will sing during the ceremony. Broadcaster Petroc Trelawny will host the event for the fourth year, while BBC Radio 3 will again broadcast highlights from the evening shortly after the event.

The Awards, founded by philanthropist Harry Hyman in 2012, aim to raise the profile of opera as an art form, to recognise and reward success in opera and to generate funds to provide bursaries for aspiring operatic talent from around the world. Since 2012 over £400,000 has been raised by the Opera Awards Foundation, going to more than 100 bursary recipients.

www.operaawards.org

2020 FINALISTS

CHORUS

Deutsche Oper
Metropolitan Opera
Opera Vlaanderen
Royal Danish Opera
Welsh National Opera
Teatro Verdi, Trieste

CONDUCTOR

Alain Altinoglu
Riccardo Frizza
Edward Gardner
Oksana Lyniv
Joana Mallwitz
Kirill Petrenko

DESIGNER

Lizzie Clachan
Aleksandar Denić
Alban Ho Van
Christian Schmidt
Małgorzata Szczęśniak
Raimund Orfeo Voigt

DIRECTOR

Valentina Carrasco
Robert Carsen
Paul Curran
Lotte De Beer
Lydia Steier
Graham Vick

EDUCATION & OUTREACH

Birmingham Opera Company
Blackheath Halls Community Opera
Deutsche Oper am Rhein
La Fenice
Opera North
Theater an der Wien

FEMALE SINGER

Maria Agresta
Lise Davidsen
Christine Goerke
Kate Lindsey
Lisette Oropesa
Elza van den Heever

FESTIVAL

Donizetti Opera Festival, Bergamo
Festival Castell de Peralada
George Enescu Festival, Bucharest
Macerata Opera Festival
O19 (Opera Philadelphia)
Salzburg Festival

MALE SINGER

Carlos Álvarez
Javier Camarena
Stephen Gould
René Pape
George Petean
Russell Thomas

NEWCOMER

Andrea Bernard (director)
Alpesh Chauhan (conductor)
Finnegan Downie Dear (conductor)
Marie Jacquot (conductor)
Louisa Muller (director)
Dariusz Przybylski (composer)

NEW PRODUCTION

Handel: Agrippina, d. Barrie Kosky (Bayerische Staatsoper / Royal Opera House)
Rimsky-Korsakov: The Tale of Tsar Saltan, d. Dmitri Tcherniakov (La Monnaie)
Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame, d. Lydia Steier (Deutsche Oper am Rhein)
Tchaikovsky: The Enchantress, d. Andriy Zholdak (Opéra de Lyon)
Wagner: Tannhäuser, d. Tobias Kratzer (Bayreuth Festival)
Wolf-Ferrari/Tchaikovsky: ll segreto di Susanna / Iolanta, d. John Wilkie / Olivia Fuchs (Opera Holland Park)

OPERA COMPANY

Finnish National Opera
La Monnaie
Oper Frankfurt
Opéra Comique
Royal Opera House
Teatro Real

OPERA ORCHESTRA

Bayerische Staatsoper
La Fenice
Le Concert d'Astrée
Oper Leipzig
Opera Vlaanderen
Teatro Real

RECORDING (COMPLETE OPERA)

Beethoven: Leonore (Harmonia Mundi)
Gounod: Faust (Palazzetto Bru Zane)
Moniuszko: Halka (Fryderyk Chopin Institute)
Picker: Fantastic Mr Fox (Boston Modern Orchestra Project)
Thomas: Hamlet (Naxos)
Weill: Street Scene (Bel Air Classiques)

RECORDING (SOLO RECITAL)

Benjamin Bernheim: Benjamin Bernheim (Deutsche Grammophon)
Daniel Behle: Zero to Hero: Mozart (Sony)
Emöke Baráth: Voglio cantar (Erato)
Jakub Józef Orliński: Facce d'amore (Erato)
Julie Fuchs: Mademoiselle (Deutsche Grammophon)
Reinoud Van Mechelen: Dumesny: Haut-contre de Lully (Alpha)

REDISCOVERED WORK

Gomes: Lo schiavo (Teatro Lirico di Cagliari)
Heise: Drot og marsk (Royal Danish Opera)
Lully: Isis (Les Talens Lyriques)
Magnard: Guercoeur (Theater Osnabrück)
Moniuszko: Paria (Poznań Opera House)
Paer: Agnese (Teatro Regio di Torino)
Sacrati: La finta pazza (Opéra de Dijon)
Storace: Gli sposi malcontenti (Bampton Classical Opera)

WORLD PREMIERE

Raquel García-Tomás: Je suis narcissiste (Teatro Real)
Detlev Glanert: Oceane (Deutsche Oper)
Elena Kats-Chernin: Whiteley (Opera Australia)
Stuart MacRae: Anthropocene (Scottish Opera)
Akira Nishimura: Asters (New National Theatre Tokyo)
Ellen Reid: p r i s m (Beth Morrison Projects)
Anno Schreier: Schade, dass sie eine Hure war (Deutsche Oper am Rhein)
Philip Venables: Denis & Katya (Opera Philadelphia)

YOUNG SINGER

Xabier Anduaga
Lena Belkina
Vasilisa Berzhanskaya
Lidia Fridman
Teresa Iervolino
Konu Kim
Roberta Mantegna
Zuzana Marková
Chrystal E Williams
Adela Zaharia

OPERA MAGAZINE READERS' AWARD

Ildar Abdrazakov
Cecilia Bartoli
Jamie Barton
Elīna Garanča
Jonas Kaufmann
Karita Mattila
Anna Netrebko
Erwin Schrott
Michael Spyres
Bryn Terfel

2020 JURY

David Agler
Michael Ajzenstadt
Shirley Apthorp
Nadine Benjamin
Xavier Cester
James Clutton
Cosma Mihai
Serge Dorny
Umberto Fanni
Irina Gerasimova
Jane Glover
Polly Graham
George Hall
Brenda Hurley
Deborah Jones
François Jongen
Robert Körner
Aleksander Laskowski
Joanna Lee
George Loomis
Max Loppert
Fiona Maddocks
Njabulo Madlala
Joan Matabosch
Erna Metdepenninghen
Christoph Meyer
Barbara Minghetti
Evans Mirageas
Annilese Miskimmon
Bongani Ndodana
Alexander Neef
Eleonora Pacetti
Nicholas Payne
Anna Picard
Christina Scheppelmann
Valery Serkin
Matthew Shilvock
Ken Smith
Victoria Stapells
Birgitta Svenden
James Taylor
Lyndon Terracini
Thomas Yaksic
Junko Yoshida
Francesca Zambello

Test and expand your Broadway knowledge with our new game - The Broadway Match-Up! How well do you know your Broadway casting trivia?	Play the Daily Game, explore current shows, and delve into past decades like the 2000s, 80s, and the Golden Age. Challenge your friends and see where you rank!
How well do you know your Tony Awards history? Take our never-ending quiz of nominations and winner history and challenge your friends.	Can you beat your friends? Play today’s daily Broadway word game, featuring a new theatrically inspired word or phrase every day!