Ana Rita Coelho, who with this award secures a contract with the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, is also the recipient of the Audience Award of the festival, as announced by the competition’s organization in a statement released today.
The Cascais Ópera concluded on Sunday with the announcement of the winners at the Grande Auditório of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.
The main awards were contested by eight finalists.
In addition to Ana Rita Coelho, the awardees included Israeli mezzo-soprano Anna Tetruashvili, who received the Teresa Berganza First Prize for the best female voice, and Serbian baritone Viktor Aksentijevic, who was awarded the Maurício Bensaude First Prize for the best male voice.
The Carlos Gomes Award, which guarantees a performance at the Festival de Ópera da Amazónia in Manaus, Brazil, was given to South Korean Sunu Sun.
Other singers received contracts with cultural institutions: Madelena Oliveira Martins, Ester Ferraro, Milan Perisic, and Jean Miannay with the Mafra Music Festival, Laura Brasó with the Chamber Orchestra of Cascais and Oeiras, JaeWoung Lee with the Algarve International Piano Festival, Ju Hyeok Lee with the Marvão International Festival, and Sehyung Kyung with the Istanbul State Opera.
The candidates performed for a jury chaired by baritone Sergei Leiferkus, comprising soprano Anna Samuil from the Berlin Opera, Eline de Kat, the artistic coordinator of the Monte Carlo Opera, Ivan van Kalmthout, the former artistic director of the National Theatre of São Carlos, soprano Juliane Banse, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore, and UK-based Glyndebourne Opera producer Pal Moe.
In the final, the singers performed accompanied by the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of conductor Antonio Pirolli.
From April 23 to Sunday, the Cascais Ópera brought together 30 singers from 18 countries, selected from 340 applicants hailing from 49 nationalities.
The Cascais Ópera is co-organized by the Association CIVOC, the Municipality of Cascais, and the Fundação D. Luis I.
The competition is part of Ópera LatinoAmérica, the largest network of theaters in Latin America, encompassing over 45 theaters, festivals, and opera companies as well as entities from other disciplines.
