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The Moniuszko Competition announces its 2025 Winners

Competitions

Run by Teatro Wielki (Polish National Opera), the competition presents an amazing lineup of artists and jurors

Held by the Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera, the International Stanisław Moniuszko Vocal Competition is the biggest singing competition in Poland. Established in 1992 by Maria Fołtyn, Polish soprano, opera director, and promoter of Stanisław Moniuszko’s oeuvre, the Competition sees its twelfth edition in 2025.

Every three years young artists from around the world gather in Warsaw to present their talents to outstanding representatives of the operatic world. For many young artists Moniuszko Competition becomes a launch pad to an international career.

The list of past prizewinners and finalists includes such excellent artists as Aleksandra Kurzak, Mariusz Kwiecień, Małgorzata Walewska, Olga Busuioc, Salome Jicia, Andrzej Filończyk, Krzysztof Bączyk, Joanna Zawartko, Ewa Tracz, Long Long, Gihoon Kim, Maria Motolygina, Gabriela Legun, Nombulelo Yende, Juliana Grigoryan and Jakub Józef Orliński.
Apart from recognized artists and singers, the Competition Jury gathers managers of top international opera houses.

From its very beginning, the Competition has been more than just fierce artistic rivalry at the highest level. It has also been a chance to promote Polish vocal literature to an international audience. The Competition's repertoire list includes the oeuvre of its patron Stanisław Moniuszko, the father of the Polish opera, as well as pieces by Fryderyk Chopin, Mieczysław Karłowicz, Karol Szymanowski, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, and contemporary Polish composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Paweł Mykietyn I Paweł Łukaszewski.
A number of important opera studios in Europe, including Milan, Zurich, Basel, Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris, Yerevan and Florence are entitled to recommend their candidates for the Competition. The recommended singers, not more than 26 in total, will automatically qualify for Round 1 of the Competition.

Samuel Stopford at the Teatr Wielki

The 15-member jury under chairman John Allison awarded First Prize to the tenor Samuel Stopford from London. Having studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Kate Paterson, Janet Haney and Jonathan Papp, he received a Bicentenary Scholarship, as well as the Royal Academy’s ABRSM Scholarship and Her Royal Highness Princess Alice’s Prize for Exemplary Studentship. He is an alumnus of the Internationale Meistersinger Akademie, and has participated in masterclasses with singers including Brigitte Fassbaender, Freddie De Tommaso and Nicky Spence. At the beginning of the 2024/25 season he will join the Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera. Samuel Stopford’s concert engagements have taken him throughout Europe, Asia and the USA. Recent highlights have included his debut at London’s Wigmore Hall singing Liszt’s Tre sonetti di Petrarca, three concerts with the Manhattan Symphony Orchestra at the Shanghai Symphony Hall, several concerts with the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra and a performance to an audience of more than 12,000 at the Shenzhen Universiade Stadium in China, which reached a further 1.2 million people via livestream.

Winners:
First Prize: Samuel Stopford
Second Prize: Arpi Sinayan
Third Prize Aksel Daveyan
Fourth Prize: Mariana Poltorak
Audience Prize: Aksel Daveyan

Jury:
John Allison (Chair), Brian Dickie, Tobias Oliver Hasan, Paul Hopper, Rosemary Joshua, Peter Mario Katona, Izabella Klosinska, Mariusz Kwiecien, Thomas Lausman, Dominik Licht, Olga Pasichnyk, Karen Stone, Tobias Truniger, Edith Wiens, Evamaria Wieser

Artists:
Orchestra of the Teatr Wielki- Polish National Opera/ José Maria Florencio

 

©WFIMC2025/FR