Tenor wins two prizes in the Operalia competition
The Portuguese tenor Luís Gomes won in the category of zarzuela and received the prize of the public for best male voice, in the international contest of lyrical song Operalia, that took place in the National Theater of San Carlos, in Lisbon.
“Luís Gomes wins the zarzuela Prize (‘ex-aequo’ with Pavel Petrov) and the audience award for the best male voice,” the organization announced in a statement.
Emily D’Angelo, representative of Canada / Italy, and Belarusian Pavel Petrov are the winners of the Operalia 2018 prize, an international singing lyrical competition founded by Plácido Domingo, which was held this year for the first time in Portugal. D’Angelo also won the audience award for best female voice, the zarzuela prize and the Birgit Nilsson award.
Portuguese tenor Luís Gomes studied at the National Conservatory of Lisbon, at the Lisbon Superior School of Music and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he graduated in Singing and did master’s degree in Opera.
He went to the Royal Opera House and, in June, made his debut on the stage of the National Theater of San Carlos in “La Traviata”, with a role that will be re-performed in October at the Coliseu do Porto.
In addition to Luís Gomes, in the final of the Opera were qualified Migran Agadzhanyan (Russia), Rihab Chaieb (Canada), Emily D’Angelo (Canada / Italy), Samantha Hankey (USA), Johannes Kammler , Pavel Petrov (Belarus), Sean Michael Plumb (USA), Simon Shibambu (South Africa), Marina Viotti (Switzerland / France) and Arseny Yakovlev (Russia).
In the final of Zarzuela were Emily D’Angelo, Luís Gomes, Pavel Petrov, Josy Santos (Brazil) and Vanessa Vasquez (Colombia / USA).
The Operalia World Opera Contest, now in its 26th edition, is an initiative created by the Spanish tenor and conductor Plácido Domingo, current director general of the Los Angeles Opera (California).
The jury of the competition includes, among others, directors of international opera houses, including Patrick Dickie (artistic director of S. Carlos), Anthony Freud (from Chicago Lyric Opera), Joan Marabosch (from the Teatro Real in Madrid) and the soprano Marta Domingo, wife of Plácido Domingo.
The first edition of Operalia was held in Paris in 1993, having already taken place in cities such as Tokyo, Hamburg, Budapest, Milan, Moscow, Beijing, Verona, Los Angeles, Mexico City, London, Madrid and Guadalajara.
