About the Opera Awards
The Opera Awards is open to professional Australian opera singers wishing to further their studies or careers overseas.
The Awards feature some of the most respected awards and opportunities available to opera singers, including the YMF Australia Award and the Armstrong-Martin Scholarship.
Entrants must have performed at least two principal roles with a recognised professional opera company in the two years prior to judging.
There is no age limit.
An adjudication panel determines the winner at a private session. Each entrant is required to perform from their own selection of four arias and be interviewed about their proposed singing activities and/or study plan.
History
The Opera Awards evolved from the Australian Singing Competition which for many years was presented in two streams: one for singers under the age of 26, the other for professional opera singers.
Since 2001, the professional stream has been its own, privately judged, competition: the Opera Awards. The premier prize is the YMF Australia Award, valued at $30,000.
The Opera Awards (Australia) feature some of the most respected and longest-running awards and opportunities available to professional Australian opera singers.
The main emphasis of the awards is to enable recipients to pursue overseas study and to assist in the further development of language, voice and music skills in the context of the global operatic and classical singing industry.
In recent years, the Opera Awards has featured the YMF Australia Award and Armstrong-Martin Scholarship.
Entrants must have performed at least two principal roles with a recognised professional opera company in the two years prior to judging.
There is no age limit.
An adjudication panel determines the winner at a private session, where each entrant is required to perform and be interviewed about their proposed singing activities and/or study plan.
The inaugural Armstrong-Martin Scholarship was awarded in 1977.
Originally administered by the New South Wales Friends of the Australian Opera (now Opera Australia) and the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, it was established to award a major cash prize to professional opera singers to study grand opera overseas.
In 1986 Music & Opera Singers Trust (MOST®) was appointed to manage the Armstrong-Martin Scholarship; the Armstrong-Martin became a major prize within the opera and classical section of the Australian Singing Competition (ASC), aimed at developing the career paths of young opera and classical singers.
In 1987 the Opera Awards was separated within the ASC, so that the Armstrong-Martin Scholarship was presented as the major prize to a professional opera singer while the Marianne Mathy Scholarship (‘The Mathy’) was awarded to a young opera or classical singers under the age of 26.
From 2001 the Opera Awards was held as a competition in its own right, with the Armstrong-Martin Scholarship featured as a major award.
Since 2007 the YMF Australia Award is the major prize of the Opera Awards. The YMF Australia Award is made possible by the generosity of Dr Di Bresciani OAM and the Board of YMF Australia.
"I applaud all that the Opera Awards (Australia) administrator, Music & Opera Singers Trust Limited (MOST®) are achieving to encourage and expand opportunities for the growth of young Australian musicians who have the potential for stellar professional careers."
Dr Di Bresciani OAM