So we whittled it down to eight:
Krenare Gashi, Soprano, Kosovo-Albanian Age 22
Christiane Karg, Soprano, Germany 27
Sung-Kon Kim, Baritone, Korea, 32
Fernando Javier Rado, Bass, Argentina, 21
Marina Rebeka, Soprano, Latvia, 27
Diego Torre, Tenor, Mexico, 27
Yali Wang, Soprano, China, 26
Anita Watson, Soprano, Australia, 27
The audience prize went to a splendid young singer who did not make the cut. This was:
Julia Novikova, Soprano, Russia, 24 - she knocked the audience dead with her performance of Lakme's Bell Song. She is an audience winner and will do really well I have no doubt. This is a nice consolation prize.
I will make no further comment until its all over. We had a great evening and we will have a super program tomorrow when each of the finalists will sing two pieces.
I am sorry I am late. We had a long deliberation followed by decisions about the choice and order of pieces for tomorrow. Here you see some unanimated discussion about just that! You may recognize the participants.
Tomorrow is another day - now time for sleep.
It's a shame that Mrs. Karanas did not advance further. I have had the privilege of hearing her on more than one occasion and she has quite an unique instrument.
Posted by: Jon Barry | October 27, 2007 at 02:08 AM