(Photo credit: Zohar Izenberg)

Soprano Eliza Boom has won the $40,000 2024 Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Bel Canto Award in Sydney.

Boom competed with arias from “Capriccio,” “Thais,” “Madama Butterfly,” and “Cosi fan Tutte.” The five judges on the panel gave a unanimous first-place vote for Bloom. The competition featured 32 singers.

Coming in second place, with the Richard Bonynge Award and Best Mozart Aria Prize totaling $15,000 was Madison Horman. Mezzo-soprano Melissa Gregory took home $7,000 for her third-place prize and the Tait Memorial Award. In fourth and fifth place were soprano Eden Shifroni and mezzo-soprano Syrah Torii, respectively. Lachlann Lawton and Bella Marslen received the $3,000 Finalists prize and Jessie Linke took home the $1,000 Encouragement Award.

In a press release, the CEO and Artistic Director of the organization said of Bloom, “rarely does a singer come along with such commanding dramatic instinct who is vocally ravishing. She is a true storyteller and a mesmerizing performer, especially in the Richard Strauss repertoire, a rare find in one so young.”

Boom was the winner of the 2024 Elizabeth Connell Prize International Singing Competition at Wigmore Hall in London. Later this month she will compete in Placido Domingo’s major singing competition, “Operalia” in Mumbai. She will also be heard this season performing with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Lyrische Symphonie, Opera National de Paris, Staatsoper Hannover, and Amsterdam Concertgebouw.