Soprano Aleksandra Kurzak has been nominated in the Female Singer category, while tenor Piotr Beczała is on the shortlist for the Opera Magazine Readers’ Award.
The latter award is the only one to be decided by the public, with voting open until September 6 on the International Opera Awards website.
Both Kurzak and Beczała have long been present in the international opera circuit, performing in the world’s most prestigious venues.
Piotr Beczała. Photo: Wojciech Kusiński/PR
Yaroslav Shemet, a Ukrainian-born conductor who lives and works in Poland, has been nominated in the Rising Star category.
His career has been developing in a truly spectacular way. At 28, he serves as artistic director of the Silesian Philharmonic in Katowice, southern Poland, and music director of the Baltic Opera in the northern city of Gdańsk.
Several of his productions in Gdańsk have been met with both critical acclaim and enthusiastic reception among audiences, including Georges Bizet's The Pearl Fishers, Karol Szymanowski's King Roger, Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito.
Winners will be announced on October 2 at an awards ceremony in Munich, Germany.
The International Opera Awards were founded in 2012.
Last year, Polish baritone Andrzej Filończyk received the International Opera Award in the Young Singer category, while a production of Stanisław Moniuszko’s Jawnuta staged by the Poznań Opera Company in western Poland won the accolade in the Redicovered Work category.
Andrzej Filończyk. Photo: PR2
Past recipients of the International Opera Awards include Waldemar Dąbrowski, general manager of the Polish National Opera, and Mariusz Treliński, the company’s artistic director.
Mariusz Treliński. Photo: PAP/Tomasz Gzell
(mk/gs)