The winners of the International Opera Awards 2017, sponsored by Mazars in association with BBC Radio 3 and Opera Magazine, were announced on Sunday 7th May in a ceremony held at the London Coliseum. Winners were selected by an international jury chaired by John Allison, editor of Opera Magazine and classical music critic with The Daily Telegraph. The coveted Opera Magazine Readers’ Award went to Juan Diego Flórez, with nearly 7000 votes cast online. Renata Scotto was at the ceremony to collect her Lifetime Achievement Award, with Lawrence Brownlee and Anna Netrebko taking the Male and Female Singer Awards respectively.
In the ‘REDISCOVERED WORK’ category, Polish conductor Grzegorz Nowak and the Teatr Wielki / Polish National Opera for their revival of Żeleński’s Goplana that was produced in Warsaw during October/November 2016. It was after this production that Nowak was asked to return to the Polish National Opera as Music Director. Among the other nominees in this category were such esteemed opera theaters as La Scala, Berlin Komische Oper, and Teatro Regio di Torino.
[Sources: press release, broadwayworld.com]