Savonlinna Opera Festival International Opera Singing Competition
The Savonlinna Opera Festival will be holding its first international singing competition in summer 2010. The competition will be open to women and men of all nationalities born in or after 1983 (women) and 1980 (men), respectively. The aim of the competition is to find promising new opera singers and the competition repertoire will consist solely of opera arias.
Interest around the Savonlinna Opera Festival International Singing Competition has been high and we have received application from around the world. We have also received several concerned e-mails from potential contestants, who are afraid that their application will not reach our office in time for reasons that are out of their hands. To enable this competition to as many young singers as possible we have decided to extend the application deadline to Monday March 22nd. Entrants will be informed of whether they have been selected by April 12, 2010.
“The Savonlinna Opera Festival, in partnership with the Timo Mustakallio Foundation, has been holding the Timo Mustakallio Competition since 1974,” reports the Festival’s General Director Jan Hultin. “The competition is now well established as an arena for young Finnish singers, and the time has come to couple it with an international competition for slightly more experienced singers focusing on opera. The Opera Festival has many assets as the organiser of an international singing competition: it is well-known in the international community, Olavinlinna Castle is a unique setting with excellent acoustics, and the finalists will have a chance to perform to a well-informed audience with the Opera Festival Orchestra. Holding the competition in July will mean that singers already attached to an opera ensemble can also take part. These are all strengths that will, we believe, make the Opera Festival competition stand apart from the other singing competitions held across the world. We are also convinced that the Savonlinna Opera Festival Singing Competition will interest agents and the opera house people responsible for hiring singers.”
“The competition Jury will consist of Directors of international opera houses, who will thus have a chance to hear new young singers and maybe even hire them for their own productions,” says Jari Hämäläinen, Chairman of the Jury and Artistic Director of the Savonlinna Opera Festival.
The Timo Mustakallio Competition will continue to be developed in partnership with the Timo Mustakallio Foundation to make it more specifically an arena for promising young Finnish singers.
The competition rules and procedure in brief
The first Savonlinna Opera Festival Singing Competition will be held in Savonlinna, Finland on July 20-25, 2010. There will be one category only, open to women and men of all nationalities born in or after 1983 and 1980, respectively.
Not more than 20 contestants, chosen by a selection committee on the basis of sound recordings and documents in spring 2010, will be accepted for the competition. Three preliminary rounds will be held at the Savonlinna Hall on July 21-23, during which the contestants will perform two opera arias of their choice with piano accompaniment. After the preliminary rounds the Jury will select six singers, who will perform two opera arias of their choice, for the finals in Olavinlinna Castle on Sunday July 25. The singers will be accompanied in the finals by the Savonlinna Opera Festival Orchestra.
Prizes
The I prize will be worth €20,000, the II €10,000 and the III €5,000. The other three finalists will each receive a prize worth €1,000.
Jury
Chairman:
Jari Hämäläinen, Artistic Director of the Savonlinna Opera Festival.
Members:
Director of Opera Elaine Padmore, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, United Kingdom
Artistic Director Joan Matabosch, Liceu Òpera Barcelona, Spain
General Director Andrés Rodrìguez, Teatro Municipal de Santiago, Chile
Artistic administrator Jonathan Friend, Metropolitan Opera
New York
The full Jury will be announced later.