International Opera Awards

These are the singer contestants for the International Opera Awards competition being held somewhere in Great Britain.  My acquaintance with these singers is spotty. 

Jonas Kaufmann Germany, tenor.  He needs no introduction, surely.  He has never sung at the San Francisco Opera but is fast becoming a regular at the Met.  Just to be annoying, I'll post him singing "La donna e mobile."



Aleksandrs Antonenko  Latvia spinto tenor.  He has never sung at the San Francisco Opera.  There are quite a few films of him, but most of them come with terrible sound.  Here he is in Carmen.  He has a bright tone and a huge voice.  It turns out I have seen him--in René Pape's Boris Godunov from the Met.  He shows 20 Met performances.  He has sung Otello in London, Paris, Riga, Wien, Salzburg, Rome and Dresden.



Piotr Beczala  Poland lyric tenor.  He has sung at the San Francisco Opera in Eugene Onegin, Die Zauberflöte, and I reviewed him in La Bohème in 2008.  He shows 62 Met performances.  I've already posted him several times, but here he is in the "Questa o quella" I missed.



Joseph Calleja  Malta, lyric tenor.  He has never sung at the San Francisco Opera but shows 43 Met performances.  For my taste his vibrato is a bit odd.  This performance is from last summer.



Luca Pisaroni  Italy, bass-baritone.  He has never sung at the San Francisco Opera but shows 37 Met performances.  Here he sings the catalog aria and keeps his list on his smart phone. 



Bryn Terfel  Wales, bass-baritone.  At the San Francisco Opera he's sung Nozze di Figaro and Rake's Progress (2000).  He shows 105 Met performances, including the famous Figaro with Bartoli.   Next season he will do Falstaff in San Francisco.  In the clip he's singing Dulcamara.  Forgive the Dutch subtitles.  We have both male and female bimbos.



Sarah Connolly English mezzo-soprano.  She appeared in Semele at the San Francisco Opera and sang the Komponist at the Met.  In general her career is concentrated in her native country.


Joyce Didonato  American mezzo-soprano.  She has sung Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Der Rosenkavalier, and I Capuleti e i Montecchi (2010) at the San Francisco Opera.  She shows 55 Met performances.  We will hear her sing "Tanti affetti" this summer at Santa Fe.



Evelyn Herlitzius German dramatic soprano.  She has never sung at the San Francisco Opera or at the Met.  Her career is concentrated primarily in Germany.  I have posted her before in a clip from Erwartung.  Here she sings the immolation scene from The Ring.



Catherine Naglestad American soprano. At the San Francisco Opera she has sung Alcina, Pagliacci, Norma, and Rodelinda (2005).  She has never sung at the Met.  Lately she sings primarily in Germany.  When I knew her, she sang Handel, but here is something much more recent where she sings Wagner.  Isn't the leggy blond mezzo a hoot.



Nina Stemme  Sweden soprano.  She has sung only 11 times at the Met and has a magnificent international career.  I have seen all of her Die Walküre Brünnhilde, and it was a profound experience.  Here is "Siegmund! Sieh auf mich!"   When he sings, "Gruesse mir Valhal," it is one of the most moving things in all opera.



Beatrice Uria Monzon France, mezzo-soprano.  She has never sung at the San Francisco Opera but shows 18 performances for the Met.  She prefers to sing in her native country.  This is rather an old film of her singing Donizetti.  This aria exists in French, but she's singing in New York where it's best known in Italian.  Remember, Philip Gossett prefers the French version of this opera.



There is very much a preference for big, heavy voices. Joyce is the only one that currently specializes in bel canto.