Plácido Domingo’s international opera competition, Operalia, will make its way to the Czech Republic for the very first time this summer.

The National Theatre, “one of the symbols of the country’s national identity [counting] more than 130 years of independent artistic performances” according to the press release, and the Domingo-Mozart-Prague organization will host the 27th annual Operalia competition. The Czech Republic’s Ministry of Culture, Prague City Hall, ČEPS, CzechTourism, and the State Fund for Culture of the Czech Republic will provide support for the competition.

Operalia will be held from July 21 to 26, 2019, and will feature forty competitors spanning twenty nations, including Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Guatemala, Italy, Mexico, Mongolia, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uzbekistan.

This year’s jury members, presided over by “non-voting mediator” Plácido Domingo, will include Marta Domingo, F. Paul Driscoll, Jonathan Friend, Anthony Freud, Jean-Louis Grinda, Peter Katona, Joan Matabosch, Pål Moe, Andrés Rodriguez, Ilias Tzempetonidis, and Carolin Wielpütz. They will gather in Prague for the quarterfinals, semi-final of twenty contestants, and Final Round of ten contestants who will be accompanied by The National Theatre Orchestra, led by Domingo himself.