Glyndebourne has announced the singers who will compete in the semi-final of its Opera Cup competition on 4 March. The opera house received over two hundred submissions from singers wishing to compete, and, following preliminary heats, nineteen semi-finalists have been selected. 

They will compete for one of six positions in the final on 7 March, which carries a top prize of  £15,000 and the guarantee of a role at one of the opera houses represented by members of the the jury. Second place holds a prize of £10,000 and the third prize is £7,500. There is also the audience prize worth £5,000 and the Ginette Theano Promising Talent prize worth £5,000. 

Each year, the competition focuses on selected composers, and this year singers will be invited to perform operatic arias by Mozart, Rossini and a selection of French nineteenth-century composers.

The semi-finalists are from thirteen different countries, including British soprano Alexandra Lowe, Swedish soprano Klara Johanna Wallroth who trained in ballet before focusing on opera, and Canadian soprano Lauren Margison who has also performed as part of jazz group The Real Divas. American mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey won the competition in 2019. 

The competition will be judged by an international jury including Stephen Langridge, Artistic Director of Glyndebourne; Shirley Thomson, Director and Head of Vocal at HarrisonParrott; soprano Dame Felicity Lott; and Jordan de Souza, conductor of Bayerische Opera. 

The final will will be broadcast on Sky Arts and presented by comedian and writer Chris Addison and soprano Danielle de Niese. 

See the full list of semi-finalists below. For more, visit www.glyndebourne.com

Evgeniia Asanova, 25, mezzo-soprano (Russia)
Maria Chabounia, 28,  soprano (Belarus)
Federica Di Trapani, 31, soprano (Italy)
Valerie Eickhoff, 23, mezzo-soprano (Germany)
Eric Ferring, 27, tenor (USA)
Jessica Harper, 29, soprano (Australia)
Maya Kherani, 31, soprano (USA)
Sungho Kim, 29, tenor (South Korea)
Miriam Luisa Kutrowatz, 22, soprano (Austria)
Alexandra Lowe, 28, soprano (UK)
Lauren Margison, 27, soprano (Canada)
Timothy Murray, 27, baritone (USA)
John Matthew Myers, 31, tenor (USA)
Edward Nelson, 31, baritone (USA)
Gabriel Rollinson, 27, bass-baritone (Germany/USA)
Dominic Sedgwick, 29, baritone (UK)
Olga Syniakova, 31, mezzo-soprano (Ukraine)
Klara Johanna Wallroth, 26, soprano (Sweden)
Meigui Zhang, 26, soprano (China)