Six sopranos, a mezzo, and a tenor are in the running to win the scholarship, which has a combined prize pool of $58,500.

Dame Joan Sutherland, Kiri Te Kanawa, Stuart Skelton, and Nicole Car are just a few singers whose careers have taken off after winning the Sydney Eisteddfod Opera Scholarship. With a combined prize pool of $58,500, the scholarship identifies future stars and provides them with a much-needed leg up in the competitive world of opera. This year, eight young singers have progressed to the final round, many of them finalists in past years.

The finalists in this year’s competition are soprano Amanda Windred (Oxley Vale); soprano Jessica Harper (Newtown); soprano Zoe Drummond (Homebush) – who has been featured in Limelight‘s Rising Star column; mezzo-soprano Bronwyn Douglass (Voyager Point); soprano Danita Weatherstone (Wyee); soprano Joelene Griffith (Mount Kuring-Gai); soprano Imogen-Faith Malfitano (Wollongong); and tenor Boyd Owen (Melbourne, VIC).

While praising the quality of singing exhibited by the finalists, adjudicator Anson Austin said that entrants needed to demonstrate more than just solid vocal chops to take home the top prize.

“It’s not just about a beautiful voice, the voice is a tool to communicate what they think about...