Metropolitan Opera Announces Semi-Finalists for Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition
By Francisco Salazar(Credit: Jonathan Tichler / Met Opera)
The Metropolitan Opera has announced the 20 semifinalists who will compete in the semifinal round of the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition on March 9, 2025.
The semifinal competition will be held on the Met stage before a panel of judges and will also be available for public viewing via livestream. The selected finalists will then move forward to the Grand Finals Concert on Sunday, March 16, at 3PM ET.
The semifinalists, ranging in age from 24 to 30, were selected from an applicant pool of nearly 1,500 opera singers. The finalists who advance are provided with a week of training with Met musical and dramatic coaches.
The semi-finalists are:
| Name | Voice Type | Age | Current City | Hometown |
| Lauren Carroll | Soprano | 26 | Houston, TX | Bettendorf, IA |
| Sadie Cheslak | Mezzo-Soprano | 29 | Chicago, IL | Duluth, MN |
| Kresley Figueroa | Soprano | 28 | Silver Spring, MD | San Juan, PR |
| Angel Gomez | Tenor | 26 | Philadelphia, PA | McAllen, TX |
| Alissa Goretsky | Soprano | 25 | Houston, TX | Los Angeles, CA |
| Sofia Gotch | Soprano | 27 | New York, NY | Oakland, CA |
| Giorgi Guliashvili | Tenor | 29 | New Haven, CT | Tbilisi, Georgia |
| Samuel Kidd | Baritone | 29 | San Francisco, CA | Ann Arbor, MI |
| Emma Marhefka | Soprano | 25 | Cincinnati, OH | Allentown, PA |
| Michelle Mariposa | Mezzo-Soprano | 30 | Washington D.C. | Quezon City, Philippines |
| Midori Marsh | Soprano | 29 | Toronto, Canada | Cleveland, OH |
| Ariana Maubach | Mezzo-Soprano | 28 | Philadelphia, PA | Toronto, Canada |
| John Mburu | Bass | 27 | Cincinnati, OH | Warwick, GA |
| Jonathan Patton | Baritone | 30 | Washington D.C. | Durango, CO |
| Abigail Raiford | Soprano | 29 | New York, NY | Tulsa, OK |
| Lauren Randolph | Mezzo-Soprano | 24 | Chicago, IL | Chicago, IL |
| Dominic Salvati | Tenor | 26 | Huntington Beach, CA | Eastvale, CA |
| Ben Strong | Bass-Baritone | 27 | Pittsburgh, PA | Indiana, PA |
| Luke Sutliff | Baritone | 28 | Houston, TX | Denver, CO |
| Ryan Wolfe | Baritone | 28 | Chicago, IL | Arlington Heights, IL |
During the Grand Finals Concert on March 16, finalists will each sing two arias on the Met stage, with Maestro Karen Kamensek leading the Met Orchestra. The afternoon’s host will be Laffont alumna and star mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, with soprano Janai Brugger, a 2012 winner, joining as a guest artist.
The winners of the competition will each receive a cash prize of $20,000 and career-making exposure. The remaining finalists will receive $10,000. The semifinalist prize is $5,000.
The Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition was established in 1954 as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and has seen Renée Fleming, Denyce Graves, Eric Owens, Stephanie Blythe, Sondra Radvanovsky, Lawrence Brownlee, Michael Fabiano, Latonia Moore, Lisette Oropesa, Jamie Barton, and Nadine Sierra win.
Categories
News
