BY PHUMZILE NDLOVU
MBABANE – Sweet melodies put Eswatini on the map!
Local baritone and bass singer Thando Zwane won the hearts of the audience and the Audience Award at the 42nd International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition, which was held in Latvia yesterday.
When reached for comment, Zwane shared with this publication that it was such an honour to be part of the competition where he competed with 800 participants. “I feel happy about the experience of partaking in such a massive international competition. The completion was tough, but I made it.” He shared that he was happy with fellow participants whom were also awarded of prizes.
The overall winners were three young men who won the three main prizes at the finals of the international competition. The 1st prize went to the South Korean baritone Jungrae Noah Kim, the 2nd prize to tenor Daniel O’Hearn from the US, and the 3rd prize to the Canadian tenor Matthew Cairns. At the final gala concert, the singers were accompanied by the Jurmala Festival Orchestra under the direction of Mārtiņš Ozoliņš.
Another LiSwati who participated in the competition was Lwazi Dlamini. When reached for comment, he said, “Belvedere is a very big and highly competitive competition, and that was witnessed from the onset, where we were 121 singers for the first round and further went on to the semi-finals of 52 singers and ended with the nine amazing finalists. Being one of the 52 semi-finalists selected was really an achievement on its own since the competition was really tough.”
He went on to say, “I was the first participant on the second day of the semi-finals, and that was a challenge on its own, but fortunately I had a good team behind me that helped ease all the nerves out. I honestly feel great about the outcome of everything, considering the very high standard all singers portrayed.”
Dlamini shared that everyone was really amazing, but of course there has to be only one winner at the end of the day. “I am assured that I will participate in the next competition and will definitely be prepared for the standard. It was a great experience that came with a lot of opportunities as well.”
This year, nine participants won engagements or coaching sessions at renowned opera houses such as Covent Garden London, Metropolitan Opera New York, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and the Dutch National Opera Amsterdam. The Theatre Bonn and the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden were new to the opera jury this year.
There were 51 qualifying rounds worldwide in the run-up to the competition, in which around 800 singers took part. 121 of them from a total of 39 nations came to Jurmala for the finale week, and 52 made it to the semi-finals. Nine of them competed in the final gala concert for the three main prizes and several special prizes.
Next year, the finals of the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition will take place in Switzerland at the Stadttheater Bern.
The International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition was founded in 1982 by the then director of the Vienna Chamber Opera, Hans Gabor. His idea was to offer young artists a springboard for an international opera career.
