39 winners arrived in Cascais this morning

They haven’t sung a single note in the competition yet. They haven’t taken to the stage, faced a jury, or heard any results. And yet, they’ve already won. Out of 499 applicants from all over the world, they were the 39 chosen ones. The hardest part is already over – and it was done before they even got here.

To become a candidate for Cascais Ópera, you must submit an application. To be selected, the jury must hear your voice, on a recording, amongst hundreds of others, and decide that it deserves to be on a live stage. This year’s edition of Cascais Ópera received 499 applications. The jury listened to 998 arias. They chose 39 people. It is these forty who arrived in Cascais today – with their bags packed, sheet music in their suitcases, stories the world has yet to hear, and dreams yet to be realised.

There is a particular sense of tension upon arrival at Cascais Ópera. It is not the nervousness of doubt – it is that of confirmation. Each of these singers has already proven that they deserve to be here.

“They have already been selected from among 500 candidates. They are all winners. From now on, the only opponent each of you must face is yourselves – to do better today than yesterday, and better tomorrow than today” – Sergei Leiferkus, chairman of the jury and co-founder of Cascais Ópera

It is for these forty selected singers that this morning’s opening ceremony was designed. Not as a formality, but as a mark of recognition. Alexandra Maurício, general director and co-founder of the competition, told them directly: “We have spent a whole year preparing for your arrival. You are here to build your careers. You are the next generation of the world’s great singers.” It was not rhetoric. It was a conviction spoken aloud so that no one would be in any doubt.

The family before the competition

There is one word that comes up time and again when people talk about Cascais Ópera: family. Not in the vague, overused sense that the word sometimes takes on, but in the specific sense of a group of people who share something that cannot easily be explained to outsiders.

The person who most clearly embodied this idea was Rita Coelho, winner of the 2025 edition, who returned to Cascais today not as a contestant, but as a living reminder of what this place can do for a career and for a person. She addressed the forty candidates with the authority of someone who had been exactly where they are and had survived—and more than survived, had flourished. She told them to embrace everything: the community, the corridors, the shared meals, the rehearsals, the moments of doubt. And he told them, with a precision that the room received in silence:

“Be nervous, but not afraid. It is your nerves that will lead you to success. Show everything you have, what God has given you, what your teachers have given you, what your nature has given you.” – Sergei Leiferkus, chairman of the jury and co-founder of Cascais Ópera

Cascais as a stage and as a place

Registration was the rite of passage. The moment when each candidate submits their documents, receives their competition number and definitively moves from the side of those who wait to the side of those who act. An administrative gesture with the weight of a threshold. After registration, Cascais ceased to be a destination and became a context – the place where, over the coming days, each of them will discover what they are capable of doing.

Salvato Teles de Menezes, president of the D. Luís I Foundation, said at the ceremony that this competition enriches the cultural life of Cascais in a way that goes beyond the event itself; that the opening up to the world, the presence of voices from twenty-five countries, and the blend of musical traditions and human journeys make Cascais a different place during this week. A place that learns the names of the world.

After the words, the work

The afternoon left no room for reflection. Earlier that morning, the forty participants posed for a group photograph – forty faces from twenty-five countries in a single frame, sharing the space before sharing their stories. This was followed by a masterclass with Jorge Balça at the Casa das Histórias Paula Rego. The rehearsal schedules for the preliminary rounds were handed out. The competition, which until now had existed only as an idea, became a calendar, a timetable, a room, an instrument, a voice.

Tomorrow, 30 May, the first rounds begin at the Cascais Conservatory of Music. The public can attend free of charge. It will be the first time these voices are judged live – the first time Cascais hears them sing.

Today, they were still just forty winners getting to know each other’s names.