The past 10 days in Shanghai have been quite phenomenal for opera.

On Oct. 17, superintendents from Vienna, London, Munich, Venice, St Petersburg and Berlin showed up for a forum celebrating the grand opening of the Shanghai Grand Opera House, China’s biggest opera house.

Less than a week later, heads of major opera houses, festivals and programmes descended on Shanghai again for Operalia by Domingo. The list of jury members reads like a who’s who of the opera world: La Scala, the Met, Salzburg, Munich, Brussels, London, Vienna, Aix-en-Provence, Chicago and, of course, Shanghai as the host city, just in time for World Opera Day, which fell on October 25.

The 2026 edition is hosted by the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and its affiliated Shangyin Opera House, China’s first purpose-built, 1,200-seat opera house, which opened in 2019. There are few occasions that bring together such a concentrated, formidable and influential gathering of opera personnel in one city. People joked that should a terrorist choose to plant a bomb in Shanghai, one immediate and obvious consequence would be that half of the world’s opera ecosystem could be wiped out overnight. But why would anyone want to blow up an opera house? Boulez has long been gone, after all, and nobody seems particularly interested in carrying on his infamous legacy.

But Plácido Domingo’s legacy lives on. Still robust in build and active in his mission, Domingo has kept Operalia going as a platform for nurturing the next generation of singers. Operalia 2026 kicked off this afternoon at the He Luting Concert Hall on the Conservatory’s main campus, a 742-seat shoebox-shaped venue known for its warm, intimate acoustics.

Half of the 34 participants who made it to Shanghai took the stage today. The other 17 will have to wait until tomorrow to prove themselves. The singers performed with three pianists — Artem Grishaev, Kamal Khan and Nino Sanikidze — each accompanying five to six candidates, bringing their own distinctive approach and touch to the proceedings. The session ran from 3 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. with a one-hour dinner break.

Thirteen jury members sat scattered across the auditorium, their faces lit by desk lamps, with none other than Domingo himself presiding over them. Liao Changyong, president of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, baritone and winner of the 1997 Operalia in Tokyo, was the sole Chinese member of the jury.

Among today’s 17 candidates were six sopranos, four baritones, three tenors, and one each of mezzo-soprano, bass-baritone, bass and countertenor. Armenia, China and South Korea were the most strongly represented countries, with three singers each. Faced with a formidable lineup of opera directors, intendants and casting chiefs sitting before them in the dimly lit auditorium, some contestants seemed overwhelmed by the pressure, making conspicuous mistakes that were difficult to overlook. Some mistakes might cost them a Rolex; others, a career before it had even begun.

Each singer, with the probable exception of Zheng Jiang, the countertenor, was expected to perform three arias, including one zarzuela. This requirement speaks to Domingo’s Spanish heritage and the cultural identity that shaped him. The same could be said of Liao Changyong, who champions Chinese art songs and takes them to stages wherever he travels.

A shared love of homegrown culture must be one of the essential factors bringing Operalia and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music together. But there are other questions to be answered. Operalia has a track record of being hosted by royal opera houses and national theatres. The 2026 edition potentially marks a groundbreaking departure: what happens when the competition comes to a conservatory?

What strengths does each bring to the partnership, and what new opportunities can they offer the candidates? I look forward to finding out in the rounds ahead.