Three rounds of competition and a gala-concert will introduce to St Petersburg public the best singing talents of opera singers from 18 to 35 years old from more than 100 countries.
The competition organizers said such promising Russian singers as Vladimir Tyulpanov and Irina Gioyeva (St Petersburg Conservatory), Anna Netrebko and Maria Gortsevskaya (Mariinsky Theater), Stanislav Shvets and Olga Guryakova (Moscow Conservatory and Stanislavsky Theater respectively) will be participating.
Also John Mee Lee from the USA, Tsveterina Vasilyeva from Bulgaria, a big group of opera singers from Milan opera houses will come to St Petersburg.
Singers from Israel, Sweden, Korea, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Belarus and Tajikistan are also expected to participate.
Christina Shepelman (artistic director of San Francisco Opera), Christine Bally (artistic director of Opera de Bastille) and Mark Hildrew, the head of one of the major producer British companies will serve as jurors.
Every participant will sing in at least three languages, including Italian and Russian. All works will be sung in their original languages, in the original key and by heart.
The first and the second rounds of the competition will take place in the Maly Hall of the Glinka Philharmonic from 11 am to 2 pm and from 3 pm to 6 pm.
In the first round (April 1-3), the competitors will sing a piece from a 19th-century Western European or Russian opera and a romance by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
About half the participants will be admitted for the second round (April 4-5), when they will sing an aria from an opera, cantata oratory of a mass by a 17th- or 18th-century Western composer, a romance by one of the Russian composers, and aria from an opera by a Russian composer and a composition, produced in the 20th century.
Only 10-12 participants will be chosen for the third round, which will take place in the Rimsky-Korsakov Musical Theater Conservatoire on April 7, from 10 am to 4 pm.
They will sing two arias -- one from a Rimsky-Korsakov opera and one from an opera by a Western European composer.
At the gala-concert, which will take place in Mariinsky Theater April 8, the winners will receive their awards ($5,000 for the grand prize, and then $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 for the other awards). (SPP)