For the twelfth year in a row, the opera competition returned to Pienza. (For the description of how the competition works see last year’s post: https://rbergson.org/the-opera-festival/)
The two women below participated in last year’s competition. Arianna Giuffrida returned to compete this year…and the woman on the right won the lead role this past Summer in Pienza’s production of Tosca. When we showed them our blog post from last year, they couldn’t help themselves…
This year’s festival attracted 72 entrants from 22 different countries…whittled down to 16 for Saturday night’s finals. Each contestant submitted five pieces to sing, and the judges chose what they wanted to hear in the finals. There was a wide variety of music…with Wagner noticeably absent…and some predictable numbers:
Jongwoo Hong sings from Puccini’s La Boheme:
And Viola Sofia Nisio sang a soprano’s aria from the same opera:
Like Olympic diving, the judges give extra points for degree of difficulty. Matteo Mancini won a coveted prize…an audition with the Berlin Opera Company…for this aria from Rossini’s Barber of Seville:
For degree of difficulty, Mancini was outdone only by Siberian soprano Maria Kokareva, singing from Motzart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio (for which she won three prizes):
After her performance, the judges adjourned to decide who would go home with honors. This is when the real fun began. To fill the hour they were away, the performers got a chance to strut their stuff.
Carol and Roger were blown away by the voice of South African Lulama Taifasi:
And Spanish tenor Gillen Munguia brought down the house with the 1932 classic Grenada:
Then came the moment everybody was waiting for. The entire cast assembled on stage, and after the first three notes of introduction…before a single word was sung…the audience burst into applause for Verdi’s Calice from La Traviata: