2025 International Opera Awards Winners

On our first front cover of a new year is the magnificent Greek mezzo-soprano Agnes Baltsa, celebrating her Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s International Opera Awards, held in Athens and hosted by Greek National Opera.

Features inside include:

The director John Cox looking back at his illustrious career in conversation with Rupert Christiansen.

The composer Sebastian Fagerlund describing his new work, The Morning Star, to Pekka Hako, before its premiere at Finnish National Opera on January 30.

Our People feature is devoted this month to the mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, who has sung everything from Donna Elvira and Carmen to Nico Muhly’s Marnie and with Wagner’s Venus and Brangäne coming up.

Ira Siff on Samuel Barber’s vocal writing in his powerful opera Vanessa, premiered at the Met in 1958.

The Polish soprano Magdalena Kuźma comes through the stage door as she prepares to sing Pamina in Die Zauberflöte in Warsaw.

Productions reviewed around the world include: El barberillo de Lavapiès in Basel; Albert Herring and Dead Man Walking at English National Opera; Legenda z Erinu in Prague; Yerma in Santa Cruz de Tenerife; The Railway Children at Glyndebourne; Medea in Chicago; Faust in Valencia; Penthesilea and Der zerbrochene Krug in Weimar; Cendrillon in North Carolina; Roméo et Juliette in Adelaide; Parsifal in Ghent; Werther in Santiago; Aida in Hong Kong; Boris Godunov in Lyon; The Makropoulous Case at Covent Garden; Faust in Liège; Falstaff in Dresden; The Magic Fountain at Wexford; Giulio Cesare in Bari; Breaking the Waves in Mexico City; Susanna at Opera North