New Zealand Tenor Pene Pati was awarded Second Prize and the Audience Prize at this year’s Operalia competition.

Pati was placed as a finalist in both the main round and the Zarzuela round, and performed Tombe degli avi miei from Act III of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and La roca fría del Calvario from Jose Serrano’s La Dolarosa.

Led by the competition’s founder Plácido Domingo, the final was held at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden with a jury of artistic directors from the world’s major opera houses.

Watch Pene Pati perform at the Operalia final at 1:04:24 in this video.

Still only 26, Pati took First Prize honours at the 2014 Montserrat Caballé Competition and attracted international attention when he earned a place on San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program in the summer of 2013