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The Herald Sun Aria, formerly known as The Sun Aria (because it was sponsored by The Sun News-Pictorial) is a vocal competition for emerging opera singers held in Victoria, Australia, each year. The competition offers nearly $60,000 in cash prizes.[1]
The competition forms the aria section of the Royal South Street Eisteddfod, Australia's oldest and largest eisteddfod.
Three of the most famous winners of the Aria competition are Wagnerian soprano Marjorie Lawrence (1928) and Dames Malvina Major (1964)[2] and Kiri Te Kanawa in 1965. Others include June Bronhill (1950), Jonathan Summers (1973), Judith Henley (1976), Suzanne Ward (1984), Linda Thompson (1990), Rachelle Durkin (2000), and Nicole Car (2007).[1]
The heats (generally two) of the competition are held annually in September at Her Majesty's Theatre, Ballarat, and the final is held at Hamer Hall in the Arts Centre Melbourne in early November. Finalists are accompanied by Orchestra Victoria, conducted by Maestro Richard Divall AO, OBE.
The competition has a panel of three adjudicators, and Richard Divall has been a panel member since 2001. The other adjudicators in 2014 were Roxane Hislop and Tiffany Speight.
Contestants, who are aged 32 years or under, are required to submit four aria titles from grand opera prior to the competition, and choose one of these to sing in the heat.
Sixteen semi-finalists are selected from those singing in the heats to appear on the evening following the second heat, again at Her Majesty's Theatre and sing another aria, this time chosen from their list by the panel of adjudicators.
Five finalists are then chosen to compete in the final at Hamer Hall, Melbourne.
'Comunn-na-Feinne is a Scots Gaelic association, founded in Geelong in 1856[3] The Sun-Pictorial sponsored an Aria Prize in conjunction with Geelong's festival in 1925[4] and subsequently. The last contest was in 1933. Notable winners include Marjorie Lawrence in 1928.
The newspaper offered similar prizes for the Bendigo musical, literary, and elocutionary competitions held in May 1925 and every year thereafter to 1936. Results 1925–1930 have not been found.
The newspaper offered two prizes each year from 1933 to 1941, there was none held 1942–1945 and a single prize thereafter. It became a section of the Sydney Eisteddfod in 1949.[5] Notable prizewinners include Joan Sutherland in 1949 and June Gough, better known as June Bronhill, in 1950.
