Every so often, the work of building an opera company happens far from the stage, in a rehearsal room, a boardroom, or in this case, an auditorium in San José, Costa Rica, listening for the next great voice of the Americas.
This past August, Florida Grand Opera General Director and CEO María Todaro traveled to Costa Rica to serve on the jury of the ORFEO Concurso de Canto Lírico de América, the fifth edition of a competition widely regarded as one of the most important vocal contests in the Western Hemisphere, second in prestige only to the Metropolitan Opera’s own national council auditions.z
A Decade of Discovery
Founded in 2016 by Luigi Sansonetti as a philanthropic initiative of the Costa Rican company Saturnia S.A., in partnership with the University of Costa Rica’s School of Musical Arts, ORFEO has spent the last ten years building a stage for young lyric singers from across the Americas, drawing competitors from the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, and host country Costa Rica. Nearly a hundred singers submitted for this year’s edition before the field narrowed to ten finalists who took the stage of the Auditorio Humboldt in Pavas on August 29.
The jury Todaro joined was a genuinely international one, chaired by Paolo Gavazzeni, artistic coordinator at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, alongside Filippo Anselmi of Piper Artists Management, ORFEO General Director Massimo Pezzutti, and artistic director Wally Santarcangelo. Together, they weighed not just vocal technique, but the full measure of what makes a young artist ready for an international career.
The Results
When the dust settled, three Costa Rican singers stood out among the finalists. Soprano Gimena Sánchez earned the Orfeo de Plata (Silver) for her rendition of “Ah! Je ris de me voir si belle” from Gounod’s Faust. Baritone Kevin Godínez took home the Orfeo de Bronce for his performance of “Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen” from Korngold’s Die tote Stadt. And baritone Andrés Soto was awarded the Premio Julio Fonseca, given to the finest interpretation of a Costa Rican art song, for his performance of “Luna liberiana.”
Why It Matters for FGO
For Florida Grand Opera, moments like this are about more than good will. They are an investment in the pipeline of talent that keeps opera alive for the next generation, the same pipeline FGO nurtures at home through its own Studio Artist and CANTO programs. Sitting on a jury like ORFEO’s gives Todaro a direct line to some of the most promising young voices coming out of Latin America, many of whom will find their way to South Florida stages in seasons to come.
It’s also a quiet but meaningful reminder of what opera does best: it travels. A Costa Rican soprano singing Gounod in French, judged by an Italian scholar from La Scala, adjudicated in part by the head of a Miami opera company: that’s not a coincidence. That’s the art form working exactly as it should, stitching together a hemisphere’s worth of talent and ambition one aria at a time.
Florida Grand Opera congratulates all of this year’s ORFEO finalists and looks forward to watching where their voices take them next.
