This year, the final round of Plácido Domingo's competition Operalia presented by Rolex takes place on the stage of the Astana Opera in Kazakhstan! One of the year's not-to-be-missed lyric opera events!

Founded in 1993 by Plácido Domingo, this competition has brought some of today's most celebrated singers onto the world stage, including Sonya Yoncheva, Joyce DiDonato, Ludovic Tezier, Rolando Villazón, Stéphane Degout, Inva Mula, Nina Stemme, José Cura, John Osborn, Susanna Phillips, and many others. For its eighth year, medici.tv has become partner in the competition.

Operalia's goal is clear: to create a platform for today's greatest young operatic talents and to boost their professional careers. In Plácido Domingo's own words : "Talent alone is not enough; it is also essential for young singers to come to the attention of those impresarios, managers, casting directors, conductors and stage directors who can further their professional careers. My purpose in Operalia is to help identify not only the best voices, but also to discover those singers whose personalities, characters and powers of interpretation show that they have the potential to become complete artists. Individuals such as these become tomorrow's stars. This is why the jury is not exclusively made up of great singers but also includes general managers, stage directors and casting directors."

Plácido Domingo – Official website

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And the 2017 Operalia winners are:

First-Prize winner (male): Levy Sekgapane

First-Prize winner (female): Adela Zaharia

Second-Prize winner (male): Davide Giusti

Second-Prize winner (female): Kristina Mkhitaryan

Third-Prize winner (male): Leon Kim

Third-Prize winner (female): Maria Mudryak

The Birgit Nilsson Prize winner (male): Boris Prygl

The Birgit Nilsson Prize winner (female): Oksana Sekerina

The Pepita Embil Prize of Zarzuela winner: Adela Zaharia

The Don Plácido Domingo Ferrer Prize of Zarzuela winner: Marco Ciaponi

The Culturarte Prize Chosen and offered by Bertita & Guillermo Martinez from CulturArte de Puerto Rico: Sooyeon Lee

The Audience Prize winner (male): Leon Kim

The Audience Prize winner (female): Maria Mudryak