The winners at the 2021 International Opera Awards were announced at a virtual ceremony on May 10. Like so many events this year, the annual “Oscars of the Opera World” were forced online by the global pandemic. With Lise Davidsen and Javier Camarena taking out the female and male singer awards and Jamie Barton winning the audience award there was plenty of glitz and glamour and some seriously good vocal excerpts. Australian viewers would have been delighted to see and hear Stuart Skelton, 2014’s winner of Male Singer of the Year and now Artistic Ambassador to the Opera Awards Foundation.

Female Singer of the Year Lise Davidsen. Photo © James Hole / Decca Records

The Awards, which launched in 2012, are the brainchild of British property entrepreneur and arts philanthropist Harry Hyman. Supported by Opera Magazine and sponsored this year by international audit, tax and advisory company Mazars, the impressively seamless digital event was organised by London-based former Limelight contributor Sarah Noble and hosted by BBC Radio Three presenter, Petroc Trelawny.

It was always going to be an unusual event this year. After the pandemic forced the organisers to cancel the 2020 ceremony, this...