Operalia Competition
Royal Opera House, 19th July 2015
Operalia is a curious beast among voice competitions. The heats take place behind closed doors – in this year’s case, deep in the bowels of the Royal Opera House’s very own Nibelheim, otherwise known as the Linbury Studio – whittling down 40 singers to just eleven. Eleven singers for a final? That’s still rather a large field. In order to whip through all the finalists in two hours, each singer is given just a single bite at the cherry – one aria to sell their wares, unless they’ve pitched for the zarzuela prize too. There’s no opportunity to build a programme to show ability in different repertoire, no chance to demonstrate proficiency in different languages.
Lise Davidsen, Plácido Domingo and Ioan Hotea
© Alastair Muir
Read the full review on Bachtrack.