The winners of the 2014 Operalia competition are Tenor Mario Chang from Guatemala and soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen of the U.S. Tenor Joshua Guerrero was awarded a second-place prize, along with American soprano Amanda Woodbury. The third-place prizes were awarded to four singers who received identical scores: Anaïs Constans and Mariangela Sicilia (two sopranos from France and Italy); John Holiday and Andrey Nemzer (countertenors from the United States and Russia). Rachel Willis-Sørensen also won the Birgit Nilsson Prize as well as the Pepita Embil Domingo Zarzuela Prize. The Don Placido Domingo, Sr., Zarzuela Prize went to Mario Chang.Two Audience Prizes were given to Amanda Woodbury and Mario Chang while Joshua Guerrero won the CulturArte Prize.
Placido Domingo presided over the finals and he was also the conductor for the 13 finalists. After the show he announced that the next Operalia competition will take place in London.
American Soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen (born 1984) was already the winner of both the 2010 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the 2011 Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition and a prize winner in the 2014 Richard Tucker Awards. She sang at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden at Houston Grand Opera Semperoper Dresden. Future engagements include roles with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and at the San Francisco Opera, Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera.
Tenor Mario Chang, a native of Guatemala City, Guatemala, recently completed the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at The Metropolitan Opera and the Advanced Diploma in Opera Studies program at the Juilliard School. In the 2014 – 2015 season, Mr. Chang will join Frankfurt Opera as an ensemble member.