The 2025 International Opera Awards – the 12th edition of the industry’s leading honours – was livestreamed worldwide from Athens on 13 November.

The ceremony drew on more than 14,000 nominations submitted by opera lovers across 25 countries.

In one of the evening’s defining moments, legendary Greek mezzo-soprano Agnes Baltsa received the Lifetime Achievement Award to a standing ovation. Baltsa, hailed for her five-decade international career and definitive portrayal of Carmen, thanked the audience simply: “I am grateful for everything that life has given me.”

Agnes Baltsa, Lifetime Achievement Award winner IOA 2025. Photo © Charis Akriviadis

Major honours reflected a year of artistic ambition and institutional renewal. Vienna’s MusikTheater an der Wien was named Opera Company of the Year following its celebrated reopening after a two-year renovation. The Janáček Brno Festival took Festival of the Year, while Robert Carsen’s staging of The Excursions of Mr Brouček won New Production.

The vitality of contemporary opera was recognised with the World Premiere award going to Mark-Anthony Turnage and Lee Hall’s Festen for The Royal Opera. Meanwhile, Teatro Real Madrid received...