Operalia Unveils Jury of Casting Chiefs as Shanghai Competition Nears

The Operalia Competition opens in Shanghai in twelve days, and its jury list reads like a directory of the people who actually hire singers. Plácido Domingo's competition has named twelve judges, nearly all of them casting directors or artistic administrators at major opera houses.

That structure is the point. Operalia is not judged by critics or academics. It is judged by the executives who can offer contracts.

Who sits on the jury?

The panel spans Europe, the United States and China:

• 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, Shanghin Opera House's presenting body, 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, European Casting Consultant, Salzburg Festival

What does this change for competitors?

The practical answer: a singer who reaches the final round performs in front of representatives from the Met, La Scala, Vienna, Munich, Brussels and Aix-en-Provence simultaneously. One audition, twelve employers. Few, if any, other competitions offer that concentration of hiring power in a single room.

The caveat is equally concrete. The announcement names the jury but says nothing about the prize structure, the number of contestants, or which venues in Shanghai will host the rounds. Those details, presumably, follow before the opening.

Two names invite closer reading. Marta Domingo, the founder's wife, is listed as a stage director with no institutional affiliation — a family presence on a jury that otherwise consists of institutional gatekeepers. Jonathan Friend, meanwhile, appears in a personal-consultant capacity rather than as a house representative, despite his Houston, Dublin and Stockholm portfolios. His decades at the Met before moving to consulting make him no less influential; the listing simply makes his authority harder to pin to one institution.

The host-side presence is Liao Chiangyong, president of both the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Shangyin Opera House. His seat on the jury anchors the competition to its host city's institutions, a signal that Operalia's China edition is tied into local infrastructure rather than merely renting it.

The competition world has grown crowded, and prizes alone no longer launch careers. Operalia's enduring asset is precisely this list: the people who decide who gets hired. Twelve days from now, in Shanghai, that argument gets tested again.