Rising Opera Stars in Jurmala, Latvia

Voice competitions offer an opportunity to discover young talent and follow trends in the opera industry. So it was a privilege to join the media jury for the final round of the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition, held in the resort town of Jūrmala, Latvia on June 9. Only nine artists had been selected from a pool of 52 who made it to semi-finals, and the line-up is always globally distributed: South Korea had the strongest representation with 20 participants, followed by the Ukraine 15 (China was also strongly represented with ten and the U.S.A. with nine singers).