The Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition has announced its 2022 winners.

After a season-long series of competitions at the district, regional, and national levels, a panel of expert judges named six singers as the winners who will receive a $20,000 cash prize and prestige and exposure. The 2022 winners are Le Bu, 26, bass-baritone (Midwest Region: Yan Cheng, China), Matthew Cairns, 27, tenor (Great Lakes Region: Toronto, Canada), Alexandra Razskazoff, 30, soprano (Southeast Region: New Brighton, Minnesota), Julie Roset, 25, soprano (Central Region: Avignon, France), Anne Marie Stanley, 30, mezzo-soprano (Upper Midwest Region: Princeton, NewJersey), and Esther Tonea, 28, soprano (Western Region: Buford, Georgia).

The other four finalists will receive a $10,000 cash prize. Those finalists are Rachel Blaustein, 30, soprano (Eastern Region: Olney, Maryland), Jonas Jud, 25, bass (New England Region: Trogen, Switzerland), Daniel O’Hearn, 26, tenor (Rocky Mountain Region: Chicago, Illinois), and Maggie Reneé, 23, mezzo-soprano (Eastern Region: New York, New York).

The Laffont Grand Finals Concert was hosted by soprano Nadine Sierra, a Grand Finals winner in 2009. The singers performed two arias on the Met stage accompanied by the Met Orchestra, conducted by Marco Armiliato.

The Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition, formerly known since its founding in 1954 as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, is now in its 68th season and has seen such winners as Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Eric Owens, Stephanie Blythe, Hei-Kyung Hong, Sondra Radvanovsky, Lawrence Brownlee, Michael Fabiano, Latonia Moore, Lisette Oropesa, Jamie Barton, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Ryan Speedo Green, and Nadine Sierra.