The Opera Foundation for Young Australians has announced the winners of its 2024 Awards, granting six Australian musicians the chance to work with some of the world’s leading opera organisations.

The Opera Foundation for young Australians' 2024 Award recipients.

Upper: Melissa Gregory, Nathan Bryon and Michael Dimovski. Lower: Lyla Levy-Jordan, Caitlin Weal and Marlowe Fitzpatrick.

The Lady Fairfax La Scala Opera Award has been awarded to mezzo-soprano Melissa Gregory. The award, now in its second year, will send Gregory to Milan’s La Scala for coaching, performance and covering opportunities for four months in 2025, and also funds Italian language lessons. It is valued at $35,000.

Now based in the UK, Gregory was the 2023 Bampton Classical Opera Singer of the Year and received the inaugural London Choral Sinfonia Leach Award for Singing, as well as a finalist in the 2022 International Handel Singing Competition. This year, she makes her second appearance at Glyndebourne Festival to perform the role of Prasowkia in The Merry Widow. 

Tenor Nathan Bryon has received the $35,000 Michael Byrne Vienna State Opera...