Met Opera: Laffont Grand Finals Concert
$35-$135
- Evan Rogister, conductor
The Met's Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition is a nationwide program designed to discover promising young opera singers and assist in their artistic and professional development. Each season, more than 1,000 applicants participate in a series of auditions leading up to the Grand Finals Concert—featuring the Met Orchestra, conducted this season by Evan Rogister—in which a small group of finalists compete for cash prizes and the chance to launch a major operatic career. Since the program's inauguration nearly 70 years ago, the competition has discovered generations of star singers, including Jessye Norman, Frederica von Stade, Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Denyce Graves, Stephanie Blythe, Sondra Radvanovsky, Lawrence Brownlee, Lisette Oropesa, Jamie Barton, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Nadine Sierra, and Ryan Speedo Green.
About Laffont Competition | Metropolitan Opera
In recognition of a generous gift from the Laffont family, the Met's nationwide vocal competition—known since its founding in 1954 as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions—begins a new chapter as the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition. Mrs. Laffont, an Advisory Director on the Met Board, has spent many hours volunteering with the auditions over the last 20 years, and she and her late husband, Eric, have long been among the program’s most dedicated supporters.
The competition is designed to discover promising young opera singers and assist in the development of their careers, and is sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera National Council, including members and hundreds of volunteers from across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Some of today’s greatest singers got their start in the auditions, including Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Stephanie Blythe, Eric Owens, Lawrence Brownlee, Lisette Oropesa, Jamie Barton, Michael Fabiano, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Ryan Speedo Green, and Nadine Sierra.
https://www.metopera.org/about/auditions/competition/