Merola/Adler alumna soprano Nadine Sierra shared first prize in the Neue Stimmen Singing Competition in Germany last weekend, and also won the People’s Choice Award. On Sunday, the finals were shown on medici.tv.
The other female first prize winner was soprano Nicole Car from Australia. The male first prize winner was tenor Myong-Hyun Lee of South Korea. First-prize awards were 15,000 euros (about $20,000 now, probably a lot more after Oct. 17 if the debt ceiling is not managed), sponsored by Bertelsmann Stiftung.
Since 1987, Neue Stimmen contests have introduced such singers as Vesselina Kassarova, René Pape, Nathalie Stutzmann, Dietrich Henschel, and Angelika Kirchschlager.
Sierra returns to Boston Lyric Opera for Rigoletto and makes her debut at the Virginia Opera as Pamina in The Magic Flute. She also appears in a performance of the Brahms Requiem and will be presented in recital by the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts in New York.