The Operalia Winners: Julie Roset & Anthony Léon

The Association of Friends of Musical Talents not only supports young Czech artists, it is also the first to present young singers from abroad, laureates of major world singing competitions, to the local audiences. In January 2025, we will welcome artists whose careers were launched in 2022 and 2023 by Plácido Domingo's famous Operalia Competition.

In November 2023, the French soprano Julie Roset charmed the Operalia jury with a rousing performance of Bell Song from Lakmé and secured a triumphant win. However, prior to that, she already won several competitions, including the 2022 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. The OperaWire ranked her among the Top Ten Rising Stars in 2023 and Julie confirms her status as a rising star with successful guest appearances at the Opéra Comique in Paris, at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, at the Teatro Real Madrid, at the Opéra National du Rhin or in August 2023 at the Salzburg Festival, where she participated in the performance of Mozart's opera Il re pastore in the role of Tamiri.

In April 2024, she made her debut at the Paris Opera as Amour in Charpentier's Médea: “Her smooth voice is a showstopper ", wrote operawire.com. The role of Cupid seems destined for Julia; she was already Amor (Love) in several operas (Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea; Mondoville: Titon et l'Aurore; Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice). "I am truly Cupid, or rather an Angel", comments Julie with a smile on her angelic collection. Julie graduated from the Conservatoire du Grand Avignon, the Haute école de musique de Genève and in 2022 from the Juilliard School in New York.

The American-born Cuban and Colombian tenor Anthony León is rapidly building an international career. Just like Julie, he won two prestigious competitions: the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition and Operalia in 2022, where he also won the Don Plácido Domingo Ferrer Award in the Zarzuela Category. He was named “Best up-and-comer” in the Inland Empire Magazine’s “Best of the Best 2019” list. Between 2022 and 2024, Anthony participated in the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program at Los Angeles Opera, where he has already appeared in several roles including Don Ottavio (Mozart: Don Giovanni) in September 2023. In the summer of 2023, he made his debut at Festival in Aix-en-Provence and the Salzburg Festival (Ravel: L'enfant et les sortilèges).

In June 2024, Anthony made guest appearance at the Cologne Opera as Nadir (Bizet: Les pêcheurs de perles) and in July he returned to the Aix-en-Provence Festival as Telemaco (Monteverdi: Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria). In the spring of 2025, the Los Angeles Opera awaits him again and his debut in the role of Ferrando (Mozart: Così fan tutte) and another Bizet's Nadir, this time at the Berlin State Opera. Apart from Plácido Domingo, Anthony names Luciano Pavarotti and Franco Corelli among the tenors who inspired him the most, and Jonathan Teleman from the younger generation (he was a guest of "Association" in Prague on 23rd January 2024 and will perform here again on 9th June 2025). “As tenors we are part of a ‘cool‘ club. We love to get together and talk tenor stuff and annoy everyone else“, Anthony says with a smile. „The media likes to play up rivalries but we are all friends!“

Both Julie Roset and Anthony León have all the prerequisites to become big international stars.

Don't miss their joint concert accompanied by the wonderful Prague Philharmonia.