(Credit: Giuseppe di Salvo)

Soprano Martina Bianculli has taken first prize at the 21st edition of the Giuseppe Di Stefano International Vocal Competition in Trapani, Sicily, and will perform the role of Giulietta in Vincenzo Bellini’s “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” this summer.

The competition, organized by the Ente Luglio Musicale Trapanese, concluded with a sold-out ceremony at the Sala Grande of the Complesso Monumentale San Domenico di Trapani. The five prize winners will all be cast in the company’s new production of the Bellini opera, which opens July 21 and repeats July 23 at the Teatro Giuseppe Di Stefano, directed by Pietro Borgonovo.

Italian tenor Luciano Giambra took second place and will sing Tebaldo. Third-place winner Wang Xiangbo, from China, was cast as Capellio. Japanese mezzo-soprano Hinano Yorimitsu claimed fourth place and the role of Romeo, while fifth-place finisher Dan Yinxuan, also from China, was engaged as a second Tebaldo.

Bianculli also received the Audience Prize and the Sicily Music Festival & Competition Prize, which includes direct entry to the finals of the 2027 Sicily competition.

Giambra was awarded both the Press Prize and the DM Artist Management Prize, providing him one year of professional representation at no cost.

Wang Xiangbo received the Rotary Club Trapani Birgi Mozia Prize, soprano Ikumi Nakagawa earned the Francesco Braschi – Kiwanis Club Trapani Special Mention, and soprano Sara Pata received both the Global Summer Institute of Music Prize and the Associazione Amici della Musica di Alcamo Prize alongside Giambra.

The jury was presided over by soprano Carmela Remigio, winner of the Premio Abbiati, and included Borgonovo, Gasparon, agents Elsa Galasio and Stefanna Kibalova, and Ente artistic director Walter Roccaro.

“The Ente Luglio Musicale Trapanese reaffirms its mission of discovering and launching young operatic voices,” said board delegate Pippo De Vincenzi. Roccaro, per an official press release. “‘I Capuleti e i Montecchi’ demands singers of rare musical and theatrical sensitivity, and that assigning these roles through the competition returns to Trapani’s original artistic vocation as a place of artistic consecration.

The Di Stefano Competition is supported by Italy’s Ministry of Culture, the Sicilian Region, and the City of Trapani.