Meet the winner and finalists from the Limelight singing competition!

Not only have David Hobson and Teddy Tahu Rhodes been busy preparing for their national tour and finishing up performance runs with Opera Australia (The Merry Widow and Don Giovanni respectively); they’ve also been sorting through audition videos sent to Limelight from young hopefuls wanting to join them onstage at the Sydney Opera House on November 4.

Entrants in the Limelight competition to sing with David and Teddy sent us a short clip of themselves performing a piece of light opera, music theatre or folksong. We had a range of repertoire from singers of all ages from around Australia, but interestingly the winner and five finalists are all female.

The singer that most impressed the dynamic duo is Emily Edmonds of Kellyville, NSW, who offered up a sultry rendition of the Habanera from Carmen. The 19-year-old mezzo-soprano is in her third year at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where she is undertaking a BMus in Performance (Voice).

Edmonds is excited to make her Sydney Opera House debut, much earlier she had imagined and with two of Australia’s great voices by her side. “I want to learn as much as I can from them,”...