United States Various – George and Nora London Foundation Competition Finals: Soloists, Lachlan Glen (piano). The Morgan Museum & Library, New York, 21.2.2025. (RP)
A staggering level of talent was on display at the fifty-third George and Nora London Foundation Competition. Winnowed down from an original field of 175, twelve singers competed in one of opera’s oldest and most prestigious competitions. Former winners are a veritable Who’s Who of opera, including Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Christine Goerke, Ryan Speedo James Morris, Eric Owens, Matthew Polenzani and Sondra Radvanovsky,
A total of $74,000 was awarded, with the five top winners – sopranos Shelén Hughes and Magdalena Kuźma, tenor Alec Carlson and bass-baritones Evan Lazdowski and Joseph Parrish – each receiving George London Awards of $12,000 each. The remaining seven singers were awarded George London Encouragement Awards of $2,000 each.
In addition to exceptional talent, the finals showcased the interest of this generation of artists in exploring new corners of the opera repertoire. There were excellent performances of Mozart arias, but the five winners sang pieces that were somewhat outside the mainstream. Two Britten arias bent towards the traditional, while the choices of the other three singers were more adventurous.
Alec Carlson’s stentorian tenor and quicksilver emotional turns illuminated, with harrowing intensity, the mental chaos of Peter Grimes from the final scene of Britten’s opera. Bass-baritone Evan Lazdowski impressed with his resonant voice, as well as his physical agility and sense of fun, in Bottom’s awakening from his strange dream in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
In ‘Ha! Dzieciatko nam umiera’ from Moniuszko’s Halka, soprano Magdalena Kuźma gave voice to the title character’s tumult of emotions with singing ranging from exceptionally soft, lyrical beauty to unbridled ferocity. Shelén Hughes displayed her superb lyric soprano in the Snow Maiden’s aria from Rimsky-Korsakov’s magical opera, The Snow Maiden, and was notable for her combination of emotional intensity and ravishing sound.
Honey-toned and suave, Joseph Parrish sang ‘A dream wasted’ from William Grant Still’s Highway 1, USA Parrish, giving voice to shattered dreams and hopes with emotional honesty and immaculate diction.
Two additional performances of note were mezzo-soprano Ruby Dibble’s rich-voiced, sultry ‘Habanera’ from Carmen, and bass Alan Williams’s tortured performance of ‘Claggart’s Aria’ from Billy Budd. Soprano Rachel Kobernick also deserves a nod for her delightful, animated performance of ‘Adelaide’s Aria’ from Jonathan Dove’s The Enchanted Pig.
The judges for this year’s finals were soprano Harolyn Blackwell, mezzo-soprano Susan Quittmeyer, tenor Dimitri Pittas, bass James Morris and Gayletha Nichols, soprano and former Executive Director of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, who chaired the jury. Lachlan Glen was the competition’s pianist.
This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Foundation’s recital series at the Morgan Museum & Library, inaugurated by Renée Fleming, winner of the 1989 competition. To mark the occasion, mezzo-soprano Megan Moore, a 2022 George London Award winner, will sing the world premiere of Crossing Borders, A Song Cycle Based on Nora London’s WWII Diary by Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer on 6 April 2025 at the Morgan.
Nora London (née Shapiro) was married to world-renowned bass-baritone George London from 1954 until he died in 1985. She served as President of the Foundation, which her husband established in 1971, from 1985 until she died in 2022 at 98. Crossing Borders relates the story of her family’s escape from France to North America in the early days of World War II when she was sixteen years old.
Rick Perdian
The 2025 London Competition Finals are available to watch on YouTube (click here).
Mozart – ‘Non più andrai’ (Le nozze di Figaro) / Sam Dhobhany (bass-baritone)
Mozart – ‘Come scoglio’ (Così fan tutte) / Emily Damasco (soprano)
Bizet – ‘Habanera’ (Carmen) / Ruby Dibble (mezzo-soprano)
Mozart – ‘Hai già vinta la causa’ (Le nozze di Figaro) / Korin Thomas-Smith (baritone)
Mozart – ‘Ach, ich fühl’s’ (Die Zauberflöte) / Dalia Medovnikov (soprano)
Britten – ‘Claggart’s Aria’ (Billy Budd) / Alan Williams (bass)
Britten – ‘Grimes’s Mad Scene’ (Peter Grimes) / Alec Carlson (tenor)
Moniuszko – ‘Ha! Dzieciatko nam umiera’ (Halka) / Magdalena Kuźma (soprano)
Still – ‘A dream wasted’ (Still’s Highway 1, USA) / Joseph Parrish (bass-baritone)
Rimsky-Korsakov – ‘Snow Maiden’s Aria’ (The Snow Maiden) / Shelén Hughes (soprano)
Britten – ‘When my cue comes, call me’ (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) / Evan Lazdowski (bass-baritone)
Dove – ‘Adelaide’s Aria’ (The Enchanted Pig) / Rachel Kobernick (soprano)