Early Music shines in 2025 Opera Awards shortlist

Baroque and Early Music have made a healthy showing in the 2025 International Opera Awards shortlist, with the winners due to be announced at a ceremony in Athens on 13 November.

Early Music nominees in the ‘Complete Opera Recording’ category include Lully’s Atys, on CD and DVD from the Château de Versailles Spectacles, released on its own label. Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, from Erato features a particularly starry cast, including Joyce DiDonato and Michael Spyres in the title roles, conducted by Maxim Emelyanychev. DiDonato compared the experience of singing Purcell’s Dido with Berlioz’s version of the character, Didon, in his opera Les Troyens, one of the mezzo's signature roles: ‘What stunned me about singing this Queen in these two extremely different operas is that in Purcell’s version I sing, maybe, 13 mins of music? But every single emotion that Berlioz develops to great detail also exists in Purcell’s Dido.’

In the ‘Recording (Solo Recital)’ category, Swedish Mezzo Ann Hallenberg and The Mozartists are among the nominees with their Signum Classics release of Gluck Arias, a selection of works from the operas including previously unrecorded arias by the composer. Reflecting on their nomination, director of The Mozartists Ian Page said, ‘Gluck remains one of the most neglected and undervalued of the great composers — a name that crops up more often in textbooks than in opera houses. We very much hope listeners will find this music far more than a matter of historical interest.’

Other selections in this category include two Italian sopranos: Rosa Feola, with Cappella Neapolitana under Antonio Florio, for Son regina e sono amante, arias from the 18th-century operas of Niccolò Piccinni released on Pentatone; and Roberta Mameli, nominated for her recording of lost arias from Italian Baroque operas entitled The Ghosts of Hamlet on the Arcana label. Meanwhile, the American Baroque specialist Amanda Forsythe is in the frame for Telemann: Ino – Opera Arias for soprano, on the CPO label.

Singers from the Early Music world that have been singled out for nominations include countertenors Hugh Cutting (‘Rising Star’ category) and Jakub Jozef Orliński (‘Reader Award’). They are joined by the Belgian singer Reinoud van Mechelen in the ‘Male Singer’ category, known for his high ‘haute-contre’ tenor voice, specialising in music of the French Baroque.

The ‘Rediscovered Work’ category is, as might be expected, rich with neglected works from the 17th- and 18th-centuries. Bayreuth Baroque’s staging of Porpora’s Ifigenia in Aulide and Musikfestspiele Potsdam’s production of Steffani’s Orlando generoso have both been nominated along with Boccherini’s zarzuela Doña Clementina (Opera Southwest) Galuppi’s L’uomo femina (Opéra de Dijon) and Lemoyne’s Phèdre (Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe).

The Innsbruck Festival of Early Music is another nominee in the ‘Rediscovered Work’ category for its staging of Traetta’s Ifigenia in Tauride and also vies for ‘Festival of the Year’. Another festival, Vache Baroque, is recognised in the ‘Equal Opportunities’ category for its imaginative, inclusive programming at its home base in Buckinghamshire.

Continuo Foundation’s founder and CEO, Tina Vadaneaux, commented, ‘I’d like to offer congratulations from Continuo to all the Baroque and Early Music nominees across a wide range of categories in this year’s International Opera Awards. The profusion of talent is a clear sign of the enduring popularity of Early Music, and the attraction and relevance that this style of music holds among audiences and listeners today.’

Winners will be announced on 13 November 2025 at Stavros Niarchos Hall in Athens.