IV Onegin National Opera Award Ceremony took place on December 1st, 2019

The IV Onegin National Opera Award Ceremony took place on December 1st at the Mikhailovsky Theatre. Opera stars and artists from over the world, journalists, music critics, opera directors, conductors alongside other prominent opera world figures - all attended the event. The Onegin Award was presented to its winners in ten regular and seven special categories. The event featured performances from world renowned opera singers such as Olga Borodina, Sergei Leiferkus, Charles Castronovo, Ekaterina Surina, Alexey Tatarintsev, Sergei Skorokhodov and others. The ceremony was hosted by a movie director Fedor Bondarchuk and an actress Sati Spivakova. Angela Gheorghiu also attended the event as an honourable guest. The venue was completely sold out.

IV Onegin National Opera Award winners by category

• Male Debut - Gury Guryev, The Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre NOVAT, Figaro in “The Barber of Seville”
• Female Debut - Gayane Babadzhanyan, Novaya Opera, Lucretia in “The Rape of Lucretia”
• Master of the Stage - Askar Abdrazakov, The Bashkir State Opera and Ballet Theatre, Mephistopheles in “Faust” and Leporello in “Don Giovanni”
• Primadonna - Nadezhda Pavlova, Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre, Lucia Ashton in “Lucia di Lammermoor”
• Supporting Role - Andrey Triller, The Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre NOVAT, Doctor Bartolo in “The Barber of Seville”
• Distinguished Guest - Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, The Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre NOVAT, Rosina in “The Barber of Seville”
• Artistic Management - “The Devil in Love”, Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
• Musical Director - Jan Bertran Latham-Koenig, Novaya Opera, “The Rape of Lucretia”; Vladimir Urovsky, Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre, “The Devil in Love”
• Cultural Event - “Orlando,Orlando”, The Moscow State Opera and Ballet Theatre for Young Audience named after Natalya Sats co-production with Helikon Opera
• Cultural Event. Project - III Annual International Chamber Opera Music Festival, The St. Petersburg Chamber Opera; Project “Opera-Symphonic Laboratory”, New World Opera

The artistic director of the “Opera-Symphonic Laboratory” Andrey Tsvetkov-Tolbin, overcome with emotion, cried during his acceptance speech. And the artistic director of The St. Petersburg Chamber Opera Yuri Aleksandrov gifted to the award a vintage edition of the Onegin novel published in 1919.

• A hundred years ago life wasn't easy for anyone, but Onegin still was being printed and published, people needed it - Yuri Aleksandrov said - Being an artist in our country isn't easy but we are needed, thank you for supporting artists!

The awards in special categories were presented as follows: Olga Borodina - The Star: Ekaterina Surina - Recognition; Dmitry Vdovin - The Soul of the Opera; Elena Matusovskaya - Concertmaster; Yuri Marusin - Legend; The Krasnoyarsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre named after D. A. Hvorostovsky - Theatre.

From Russia with Love award was presented to a international opera star Angela Gheorghiu

A separate Malta Award for contribution to the Onegin international charity program was presented to Ekaterina Gavrilova and Igor Gornostaev. The award was presented by the honorable consul of the Republic of Malta Igor Onokov.

• Nowadays you don’t see any titles on the posters for upcoming opera events - said the president of the Onegin National Opera Award Sergei Leiferkus - I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the current stance of the Ministry of Culture on that matter. But now we have the title of the Onegin Award winner, this title is a mark of quality and is important to the opera goers. It is important to keep the public informed about the award: who won and what for? And in that department our Award is doing a great deal.

The jury for this years Awards were: Larisa Gergieva, Ljuba Glazkova, Sebastian Schwarz, Olga Rusanova, Irina Dolzhenko, Vasily Barkhatov. Honourable chairman of the jury - Sergei Leiferkus.