World opera competition Operalia held in London first time

For the first time in its 22-year history, the final round of Placido Domingo's Operalia 2015, the world opera competition, was held here at the Royal Opera House on Sunday evening.

Romanian tenor Ioan Hotea and Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen both won this year's first prize awards of 30,000 U.S. dollars. Chinese tenor Chuanyue Wang pulled out of this year's Operalia due to illness.

Hotea also received The Don Placido Domingo Sr. Prize of Zarzuela, and Davidsen also received both the Birgit Nilsson Prize and the Rolex Audience Prize.

The public final competition, during which 11 finalists competed, was conducted by Placido Domingo.

Earlier last week, 40 contestants drawn from 21 countries and districts took part in three days of preliminary rounds of performing in front of the competition's international jury. The countries and districts included the United States, France, Australia, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, South Africa, among others.

The competition, which is hosted by a different city every year, was founded in 1993 with the aim of discovering and helping launch the careers of today's most promising young opera singers.

Operalia is open to singers of all voice types between the ages of 18 and 32.

"My purpose in Operalia is to help identify not only the best voices of today, but also to discover those singers whose personalities, characters and powers of interpretation show that they have the potential to become complete artists," said Domingo. Endit