The participants have been chosen from over 440 singers representing 51 countries who submitted their video recordings to a selection panel. This is an all-time record in the event’s over-four-decade history.
Addressing a press conference in Warsaw, the director of the competition Beata Klatka has said that the Moniuszko Competition occupies a unique place on the world’s cultural map, having made a significant contribution to the international promotion of the legacy of not only Moniuszko, the father of Polish national opera, but also of the vocal output of such composers as Karol Szymanowski, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Władysław Żeleński, Ludomir Różycki, Stanisław Niewiadomski, Mieczysław Karłowicz, Grażyna Bacewicz, Mieczysław Wajnberg, and Krzysztof Penderecki.
Klatka added: “Thanks to the Moniuszko Competition, young singers from across the world are getting acquainted with Polish vocal music, subsequently including it into their repertoire”.
An international jury, chaired by John Allison, editor of Opera Magazine, comprises representatives of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Los Angeles Opera, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the English National Opera, Salzburg Festival, Munich Opera, as well as Polish singers Izabela Kłosińska, Olga Pasiecznik and Mariusz Kwiecień.
Prize winners’ names are to be announced on June 7.
Launched in 1992 and held every three years, the competition was founded by the late Polish soprano and opera director Maria Fołtyn, who did a great deal to promote Moniuszko’s operas on the international scene.
Previous prize winners of the Moniuszko Competition include such outstanding singers as Aleksandra Kurzak, Urszula Kryger, Małgorzata Walewska, Mariusz Kwiecień, Alexey Markov, Vladimir Moroz, Andrzej Filończyk and Jakub Józef Orliński.
(mk/jh)