Laffont Grand Finals Concert

The Met’s Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition is a nationwide program designed to discover promising young opera singers and assist in their artistic and professional development. Each season, more than 1,700 applicants participate in a series of auditions leading up to the Grand Finals Concert—featuring the Met Orchestra, this year conducted by Evan Rogister—in which a small group of finalists compete for cash prizes and the chance to launch a major operatic career. Since the program’s inauguration more than 70 years ago, the competition has discovered generations of star singers, including Jessye Norman, Frederica von Stade, Renée Fleming, Thomas Hampson, Stephanie Blythe, Sondra Radvanovsky, Lawrence Brownlee, Lisette Oropesa, Jamie Barton, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Nadine Sierra, and Ryan Speedo Green