Operalia 2026 Jury Draws Casting Power From Met, Scala, Vienna

By Daniel Okafor

The Operalia Competition has named a 2026 jury of thirteen figures drawn from the casting desks of the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, the Royal Ballet and Opera and the Wiener Staatsoper. Shanghai hosts the contest from Oct. 26 to Nov. 1, 2026.

That's not a jury. That's a shortlist of the people who actually decide who sings where. For any young vocalist, one week in Shanghai amounts to a rolling audition in front of half of Europe's casting establishment.

Who sits on the 2026 jury?

The list runs from general directors to casting managers, and it reads like a Who's Who of the industry's backstage:

• Sophie de Lint, Director, Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam
• Marta Domingo, stage director
• Jonathan Friend, Casting Consultant, Houston Grand Opera; Artistic Advisor, Irish National Opera, Dublin; Casting Consultant, Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm
• Michael Heaston, Deputy General Manager, The Metropolitan Opera, New York
• Peter Katona, Director of Casting, Royal Ballet and Opera, London
• Robert Körner, Casting Director, Wiener Staatsoper
• Liao Chiangyong, President, Shanghai Conservatory of Music and President, Shangyin Opera House
• Erik Malmquist, Head of Casting, Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich
• Isla Mundell-Perkins, Director of Artistic Administration, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence
• Christina Scheppelmann, General and Artistic Director, La Monnaie/De Munt, Brussels
• Sebastian F. Schwarz, Casting Manager, Teatro alla Scala di Milano
• Evamaria Wieser, Casting Consultant & Director of the Young Singers Project, Salzburg Festival; European Casting Consultant, Lyric Opera of Chicago

Plácido Domingo founded Operalia, and his name still anchors the institution's identity. This year's panel, though, is the story: Munich, Vienna, Milan, London and New York all in one room, comparing notes on the same thirteen months of vocal promise.

Where and when does it happen?

The Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Shangyin Opera House will host the competition from Oct. 26 to Nov. 1, 2026. The pairing of hosts matters. Liao Chiangyong, president of both institutions, also sits on the jury, which signals how closely Operalia is knitting itself into China's classical music infrastructure.

The Shanghai Conservatory trains a substantial share of China's opera singers. Hosting Operalia there places the world's most casting-connected competition directly inside one of the fastest-growing talent pools in the art form.

What does winning actually get you?

The track record argues for itself. Previous Operalia winners include Ekaterine Buachidze, Mihai Damian, Kathleen O'Mara, Le Bu, Juliana Grigoryan, Anthony León, Adriana Gonzalez, Xabier Anduaga, Adela Zaharia and Levy Sekgapane.

Adela Zaharia and Levy Sekgapane have since become regulars on major European stages. Xabier Anduaga and Anthony León have built international careers on the strength of the visibility the prize confers.

Why does the jury's composition matter?

Operalia's real prize isn't the cheque. It's the room. A singer who reaches the final round performs, in effect, for the deputy general manager of the Met, the casting directors of Vienna and Munich, and the general director of La Monnaie simultaneously. Few agents could assemble that table for a client in a decade of lunch meetings.

The 2026 edition also confirms a geographic shift. Operalia has held editions beyond Europe and the Americas before, but a jury this European-heavy travelling to Shanghai, rather than the reverse, marks where the competition believes the next decade of voices will come from.

Expect the winners' list from Nov. 1 to surface on rosters at Bayerische Staatsoper and the Met within a few seasons. That, historically, is how this competition pays out.