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New York, NY (April 23, 2023)—The Met proudly presents the winners of the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competitors: tenor Anthony León, mezzo-soprano Natalie Lewis, soprano Teresa Perrotta, mezzo-soprano Sarah Saturnino, bass-baritone Christian Simmons, and soprano Meredith Wohlgemuth. After a season-long sequence of competitions on the district, regional, and nationwide ranges, a panel of knowledgeable judges named these six singers because the winners, every receiving a $20,000 money prize and the status and publicity that include profitable a contest that has launched the careers of a lot of opera’s largest stars.
The 2023 winners, their ages, the areas that they symbolize within the competitors, and their hometowns are:
- Anthony León, 26, tenor (Western Area; Riverside, California)
- Natalie Lewis, 24, mezzo-soprano (Japanese Area; Severna Park, Maryland)
- Teresa Perrotta, 27, soprano (Nice Lakes Area; Orlando, Florida)
- Sarah Saturnino, 29, mezzo-soprano (Western Area; Grass Valley, California)
- Christian Simmons, 28, bass-baritone (Rocky Mountain Area; Washington, D.C.)
- Meredith Wohlgemuth, 27, soprano (Japanese Area; Winter Haven, Florida)
Earlier this afternoon, the ten finalists carried out within the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Grand Finals Live performance, hosted by soprano Latonia Moore, a Grand Finals winner in 2000. The singers every carried out two arias on the Met stage, accompanied by the Met Orchestra and performed by Michele Gamba.
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The remaining 4 non-winning finalists, who every obtain a $10,000 money prize, are:
- Eleomar Cuello, 28, baritone (Southeast Area; Havana, Cuba)
- Yuntong Han, 28, tenor (Central Area; Shenyang, China)
- Sahel Salam, 29, tenor (Central Area; Houston, Texas)
- David Wolfe, 24, baritone (Higher Midwest Area; Shamokin, Pennsylvania)
This season, the competitors had greater than 1,200 candidates, with greater than 900 singers qualifying to take part in 36 districts. Of the 137 singers within the regional rounds, 20 have been named semifinalists.
The Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competitors is operated on the district and area ranges by lots of of devoted volunteers and donors from throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico. Greater than $500,000 in complete has been awarded this season throughout the entire competitors rounds.
The Eric and Dominique Laffont Competitors, previously identified since its founding in 1954 because the Metropolitan Opera Nationwide Council Auditions, is now in its 69th season. The Met’s vocal competitors is a career-making alternative for aspiring opera singers, given the attain of the auditions, the variety of candidates, and this system’s lengthy custom. The competitors has been essential in introducing a lot of at present’s best-known opera stars, together with Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Eric Owens, Stephanie Blythe, Hei-Kyung Hong, Sondra Radvanovsky, Lawrence Brownlee, Michael Fabiano, Latonia Moore, Lisette Oropesa, Jamie Barton, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Ryan Speedo Inexperienced, and Nadine Sierra.
The competitors gained worldwide acclaim with the discharge of the 2008 feature-length documentary The Audition, directed by award-winning filmmaker Susan Froemke, which chronicled the 2007 Nationwide Council Auditions season and Grand Finals Live performance.
Biographies of the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competitors Winners
Tenor Anthony León has appeared on the Santa Fe Opera, Carnegie Corridor, Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Geneva’s Victoria Corridor, and Metz’s Arsenal Live performance Corridor, amongst others. Throughout the 2022–23 season, he’s a member of the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Younger Artist Program at LA Opera, the place he has sung Roderigo in Verdi’s Otello, Don Curzio in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, the Male Refrain in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, Spoletta in Puccini’s Tosca, and Normanno in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. He’s scheduled to look on the Pageant d’Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg Pageant, sing Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at LA Opera, and might be heard on a recording of Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria with the ensemble I Gemelli. Final 12 months, he earned first prize and the Don Plácido Domingo Ferrer Zarzuela Prize on the Operalia competitors.
In current seasons, mezzo-soprano Natalie Lewis has appeared because the Third Woman in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Marcellina in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and Mistress Shortly in Verdi’s Falstaff. She has participated in quite a few summer time younger artist applications, together with on the Aspen Music Pageant, Houston Grand Opera’s Younger Artists’ Vocal Academy, Opera Neo, and American Institute for Music Research in Graz, Austria. She positioned first in Houston Grand Opera’s Live performance of Arias in 2023, in addition to within the New England Area NATS competitors. She graduated with a bachelor’s diploma from the College of Massachusetts Amherst and is presently ending her grasp’s diploma on the Juilliard Faculty, the place she is a Kovner Fellow. Upcoming performances embrace Zita in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and the Princess in Puccini’s Suor Angelica at Juilliard Opera, Lucretia in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia with San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program, and her debut at Carnegie Corridor with the Cecilia Refrain of New York. Throughout the 2023–24 season, she is going to be part of the opera studio on the Bavarian State Opera, below scholarship with the Opera Basis.
Throughout the 2022–23 season, soprano Teresa Perrotta joined Washington Nationwide Opera’s Cafritz Younger Artist Program, singing the Fifth Maid in Strauss’s Elektra and Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème. Extra debuts embrace Alice Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff at Maryland Lyric Opera and Anna in Verdi’s Nabucco with Washington Live performance Opera. This summer time, she is going to return to the Glimmerglass Pageant as Mimì in La Bohème. Upcoming engagements additionally embrace debuts with Berkshire Opera Pageant and the Erie Philharmonic and a return to the Santa Fe Opera, the place she beforehand appeared as Helena in A Midsummer Night time’s Dream and Alice Ford. She made her worldwide debut as Marie Antoinette in John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles on the Royal Opera of Versailles in 2019, and he or she has participated in workshops for Gregory Spears’s The Righteous, Kevin Places’s The Hours, and Tobias Picker’s Awakenings. She has been a younger artist on the Santa Fe Opera, Glimmerglass Pageant, Chautauqua Opera, and Ohio Mild Opera. She acquired her undergraduate diploma from the Eastman Faculty of Music and her grasp’s diploma and artist diploma from the College of Cincinnati Faculty-Conservatory of Music.
Mezzo-soprano Sarah Saturnino is in her first season in LA Opera’s Domingo-Colbert-Stein Younger Artist Program. At LA Opera, she has sung Lucretia in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, Jocabed in Henry Mollicone’s Moses, and Emilia in Verdi’s Otello. She is a former younger artist on the Santa Fe Opera, the place she coated the title position of Carmen, Meg Web page in Verdi’s Falstaff, Marcellina in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and Hippolyta in Britten’s A Midsummer Night time’s Dream. She can also be a former resident artist at Shreveport Opera, the place she sang Carmen in The Tragedy of Carmen, Marcellina, Maddalena and Giovanna in Verdi’s Rigoletto, and Julia Baby in Lee Hoiby’s Bon Appétit. She has additionally sung Vera Boronel in Menotti’s The Consul with Baltimore Live performance Opera and Maddalena at Painted Sky Opera, Opera San Antonio, and Amarillo Opera. She is an alumna of the Chautauqua Establishment and not too long ago made her debut with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra because the Alto Soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and carried out in Dayton Opera’s Maria Callas Centennial Celebration Live performance. She holds a grasp’s diploma from Yale College and a bachelor’s diploma from College of California, Los Angeles.
Bass-baritone Christian Simmons is presently a Cafritz Younger Artist at Washington Nationwide Opera, the place this season he covers Ferrando in Verdi’s Il Trovatore and Colline in Puccini’s La Bohème and seems because the Policeman in Jeanine Tesori’s Blue, Colline within the young-artist efficiency of La Bohème, and within the American Opera Initiative. Final season, he made his debut with Washington Nationwide Opera as Zuniga within the young-artist efficiency of Bizet’s Carmen. He has additionally been a featured soloist in Mozart’s Requiem with the Nationwide Symphony Orchestra and carried out in Zaid Jabri’s Southern Crossings at Barnard Faculty and as Colline at Annapolis Opera Firm. He has appeared on the Morgan State College Theater, Bel Cantanti Opera Firm, Washington Opera Society, Castleton Music Pageant, Amalfi Coast Music Pageant, Berlin Opera Academy, Naked Opera Firm, and Maryland Opera Studio, and his roles have included Figaro in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, the King in Verdi’s Aida, Sparafucile in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Seneca in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea, the Duke of Verona in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, Nardo in Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera, and Jabez Stone in Moore’s The Satan and Daniel Webster.
Soprano Meredith Wohlgemuth not too long ago accomplished her grasp’s diploma the Juilliard Faculty and sang within the U.S. premiere of George Benjamin’s Classes in Love and Violence as a part of Tanglewood’s Pageant of Up to date Music final August. Throughout the 2021–22 season, she made her debut at Nationwide Sawdust in Brooklyn, performing in Beth Morrison Tasks’s 21c Liederabend Op. Senses. Not too long ago, she additionally made her debut at Carnegie Corridor as a Renée Fleming SongStudio Younger Artist and carried out on the Caramoor Middle for Music and the Arts and at New York’s Merkin Corridor as a Schwab Vocal Rising Star with New York Pageant of Track. This 12 months, she is going to make her Carnegie Corridor Stern Auditorium debut with the Cecilia Refrain of New York and will probably be a Renée Fleming Artist on the Aspen Music Pageant, the place she is going to sing Ilia in Mozart’s Idomeneo. Subsequent season, she is going to be part of the ensemble at Staatsoper Hannover.
