Five HarrisonParrott artists shortlisted for International Opera Awards 2023
16/10/2023
Congratulations to our artists for being nominated in this year's International Opera Awards. The winners will be announced on 9 November at the Teatr Wielki, Polish National Opera.
HarrisonParrott tenor Siyabonga Maqungo, singing the role of Pong in Puccini’s Opera Turandot, is part of the musical team shortlisted for the Best Recording award of the International Opera Awards 2023 under recording label Warner Classics.
Alongside Radvanovsky as Princess Turandot, Spyres as Altoum and Kaufmann as Calaf, Maqungo sings the role of Pong under the direction of Pappano with Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. A year in the making with recording sessions having taken place in Rome, the album was released in March 2023 and can be purchased on the Warner Classics official website, as well as streamed on the online platforms Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and YouTube Music.
Blaise Malaba has been nominated for the Young Singer of the Year award. Formally a member of the Royal Opera House Covent garden’s Jette Parker Artists Programme, Blaise has since made a series of impressive debuts at houses including Opéra national de Montpellier, Teatro Colón and Canadian Opera Company. This season, he returns to Covent Garden as Zuniga in the new production of Carmen under Sir Antonio Pappano and he joins the cast of both Turandot and Rigoletto on Covent Garden’s tour to Japan.
Nominated for Best New Production is Opéra de Paris’ Nixon in China, in which Xiaomeng Zhang performed as Chou-en-Lai. Directed by Valentina Carrasco with music by HP’s own John Adams and libretto by Alice Goodman, the production depicts the period of ping-pong diplomacy meeting the USA and China culminating in the historic meeting between Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong in February 1972, in vivid terms. Gustavo Dudamel led the orchestra for nine performances in March and April 2023.
Golda Schultz has been nominated in the Female Singer category. Recent highlights for Golda include Micaëla (Carmen) at Opéra National de Paris and Lyric Opera of Chicago, Contessa and Liù at Wiener Staatsoper, Agathe (Der Freischütz) at Bayerische Staatsoper, Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito) at Salzburger Festspiele, Clara in Jake Heggie’s It’s A Wonderful Life at San Francisco Opera, Madame Lidoine in Barrie Kosky’s highly acclaimed staging of Dialogues des Carmélites at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and her debut as Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) at Opernhaus Zurich. This season, she’ll make her house debut at Royal Opera House Covent Garden and at Berliner Staatsoper unter den Linden.
The new production of Bohuslav Martinů’s The Greek Passion, led by conductor Maxime Pascal received a nomination in the New Production category. Martinů’s four-act opera was performed for the first time at the Salzburg Festival this summer. The libretto written by the composer is based on Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel Christ is Crucified Again. The plot is timelessly topical, and references to current events are unmistakable: the inhabitants of a Greek village celebrate Easter. United in their faith, they learn from their priest Grigoris who among them has been chosen as a performer for next year’s Passion Play. A short time later, a rift runs through the community — triggered by the sudden arrival of a group of exhausted refugees who ask the wealthy village for help and asylum.
