International Opera Awards announced

Berlin’s Komische Oper won the award for best opera company while the Bregenz Festival, held in a small town on the shores of Lake Constance in Austria, was named the best festival. 

Neither Gerhaher nor Harteros was on hand to accept their awards at a gala held in London’s Savoy Theater, but David Pountney, the British general director of the Bregenz Festival, said the event should serve as a lesson that the arts can be good for business. 

The award for best new opera production went to the Birmingham Opera Company for its staging of “Khovanskygate,” an adaptation of the Russian composer Mussorgsky’s rarely heard “Khovanshchina”. 

Graham Vick, the artistic director of Birmingham Opera, said the production had proved that opera could attract a younger audience, and more diverse participation, than is generally thought to be the case. 

Russian-born conductor Semyon Bychkov won the award for best conductor while Britain’s Richard Jones took the award for best director. 

The Opera Magazine readers’ awards for best singers went to German tenor Jonas Kaufmann and Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak. Speight Jenkins, general director of the Seattle Opera from 1983 to 2014, was given a lifetime achievement award.