Successful Albanian-born soprano Ermonela Jaho has won the 2016 International Opera Awards for the Opera Readers’ Award category from worldwide collected votes. “I am very excited at the moment. I thank all Albanians who voted for me and the public that follows me in every part of the world. Anyone who devotes all his life to his passion, is always a winner,” said Jaho for Top Channel after receiving the international award.
Among other artists selected for Readers’ Award by the International Opera Awards’s jury chaired by Opera magazine editor John Allison and classical music critic with The Daily Telegraph were Danielle De Niese, Joyce DiDonato, Michael Fabiano, Gerald Finley, Juan Diego Flà³rez, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and Eva-Maria Westbroek. Founded in 2012, The International Opera Awards in collaboration with the ”¯Opera Magazine aims to raise the profile of opera as an art form and shed light and reward successful artists involved.
Born in Tirana, Jaho made her operatic debut as Violetta when she was 17 years old. Nowadays she is one of the most successful Albanian sopranos performing for various opera houses worldwide such as the Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Paris Opà©ra, Berlin State Opera, Teatro Real, Madrid, Opà©ra de Lyon and Opà©ra de Marseille, etc. ”¯So far she has won the Giacomo Puccini competition in Milan, Italy 1997, Spontini International Competition in Ancona, Italy 1998, Zandonai in Rovereto, Italy 1999, and The Best Singer at the Wexford Festival, 2000.
