The Richard Tucker Music Foundation has announced that Lisette Oropesa is the winner of the 2019 Richard Tucker Award.

The prize, referred to as the “Heisman Trophy of Opera,” is an award given to an American singer at the threshold of a significant international career and carries the foundation’s most substantial cash prize of $50,000.

Oropesa is coming off a season where she made her house debuts in the title role of “Lucia di Lammermoor” at the Teatro Real Madrid and Royal Opera House, where she made headlines receiving rave reviews.

“We are delighted that Lisette Oropesa has been named the 2019 Richard Tucker Award winner. She is an incredible soprano whom we have watched develop over the years, and we’re very proud of the artist that she is today,” Barry Tucker, the president of the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, stated in a press release. “We know that she will go on to do great things in her career and make the Richard Tucker Music Foundation proud.”

For her part, the soprano said, “Thank you so very much! I am extremely appreciative of the tremendous honor from the Tucker Foundation. I can’t wait to join my friends and colleagues at the annual Tucker Foundation gala in New York this year. It is a very special event that I feel privileged to be a part of.” (She also spoke to OperaWire about winning the award in an interview.)

Past winners of the Richard Tucker Gala include Stephanie Blythe, Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Christine Goerke, Matthew Polenzani, Isabel Leonard, and Deborah Voigt.

Oropesa will be inducted into this who’s who of American opera at the foundation’s annual gala slated for Oct. 27, 2019 at Carnegie Hall.