Mentors
Discover our exceptional Masterclasses and the esteemed mentors leading them.
Sergei Leiferkus’s Bio
Curriculum Vitae
Baritone Sergei Leiferkus is widely recognized as one of the most distinguished artists on the international opera scene. His remarkable ability to convey both nobility and villainy has made him renowned for roles such as Scarpia (Tosca), Iago (Otello), Rangoni (Boris Godunov), Telramund (Lohengrin), and Alberich (Der Ring des Nibelungen). He has appeared on the world’s most prestigious stages, including the Royal Opera House, Wiener Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin, La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Opéra Bastille, as well as at leading festivals such as Salzburg, Glyndebourne, and Edinburgh.
His extensive repertoire includes around 50 roles, among them Eugene Onegin, Nabucco, Macbeth, Simon Boccanegra, Don Giovanni, and Parsifal, with a special emphasis on Russian music from the 19th and 20th centuries. Recent additions to his repertoire include Berg’s Lulu, Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, and contemporary works by Peter Eötvös and Alexander Raskatov. In concert, he has performed with leading orchestras and conductors such as Abbado, Gergiev, Levine, Mehta, and Muti, and is particularly celebrated for Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13. He is currently Artistic Director of Cascais Opera – International Vocal Competition, alongside pianist Adriano Jordão.
Jorge Balça’s Bio
Curriculum Vitae
Over the past three decades, primarily in London, Portugal and Amsterdam, Dr Jorge Balça has developed a strong portfolio of work and a unique combination of skillsets – as a stage director (of theatre, opera, and hybrid forms), a teacher and workshop leader, a presentation skills, acting and creativity coach, and practice-based researcher. His work in all these domains is distinguished by his commitment to and skill in making fantasy and invention emerge from precise knowledge and training – and by his ability to inspire a similar alchemy in his collaborators.
Classically trained as an actor and countertenor, he studied theatre directing in London and Moscow, specialising in Shakespeare, techniques of adaptation, Meyerhold and commedia dell’arte. Jorge also holds a PhD exploring the dramatic training of opera performers.
With a love for site specific projects and collaborative forms, and an equal flair for comedy and drama, his work is dramaturgically inventive, visually striking, and physically engaged. He was the artistic director of Bloomsbury Opera and associate director of The Opera Makers, both in London. In Portugal, he has recently directed L’Heure Espagnole and The Turn of the Screw at Centro Cultural de Belém, and Don Giovanni and La Voix Humaine at Festival de Ópera de Óbidos. Jorge is committed to his work as a teacher, having taught at the Dutch National Opera Academy, Morley College London, Portuguese School for Theatre and Cinema, and other institutions. He maintains an international coaching private practice and is the acting coach at the Neil Semer Vocal Institute in Italy.
Watch Jorge Balça’s TEDx Talk “The Changing Body from Within and Without” here!
Juliane Banse’s Bio
Curriculum Vitae
Few artists of her generation are as successful as Juliane Banse in so many areas of diverse repertoire. Her operatic repertoire ranges from Feldmarschallin, Figaro-Gräfin, Fiordiligi, Donna Elvira, Vitellia to Genoveva, Leonore, Tatjana, Arabella, Marschallin, Grete (Schreker’s Der ferne Klang) and Schneewittchen (in Heinz Holliger’s Schneewittchen).
Born in southern Germany and raised in Zurich, the soprano first took lessons with Paul Steiner, later with Ruth Rohner at the Zurich Opera House, and then completed her studies with Brigitte Fassbaender and Daphne Evangelatos in Munich.
Since the winter semester 2020/2021, she has been teaching as a professor at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and in the winter semester 2023 she has taken over the direction of the singing class at the Escuela Reina Sofia in Madrid. She also gives master classes in Austria and abroad and participates as a jury member in international competitions.
The artist worked with numerous renowned conductors, including Lorin Maazel, Kent Nagano, Riccardo Chailly, Bernard Haitink, Franz Welser-Möst, Claudio Abbado and Manfred Honeck.
Lieder recitals have always been her passion and have taken her to the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Wigmore Hall in London, Konzerthaus Vienna, Kölner Philharmonie, Berlin’s Boulez Hall and Madrid, among others.
Liliana Bizineche’s Bio
Curriculum Vitae
Born in Romania, Liliana Bizineche developed a passion for singing from an early age, inspired by her parents. At 17, she began studying with Valentina Cretoiu and graduated from the Cluj Faculty of Music in 1980, later perfecting her technique with Ileana Cotrubas, Regina Reznik, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and Renée Jacobs. As a soloist at the Romanian National Opera in Cluj, she performed leading roles in operas by Mozart, Bellini, Bizet, Rossini, Puccini, Verdi and Mussorgsky. She gained international recognition, winning prizes in major competitions in Athens, Barcelona, Leipzig, Geneva, Rio de Janeiro, Munich, Budapest, ’s-Hertogenbosch and Paris, including the First Prize from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Alice Tully Prize.
Her international career began in 1981 at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon, performing Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther alongside Alfredo Kraus. She has appeared on major opera stages worldwide, collaborating with Shirley Verrett, Ileana Cotrubas, José Carreras, Ferruccio Furlanetto and others, under conductors such as Michel Corboz, Mstislav Rostropovich, Antonio Pappano, Kurt Masur and Yehudi Menuhin. She has recorded works by Beethoven, Honegger, Schumann, Perrin, Handel and Schubert, including Verdi’s Requiem live in Terezin. Currently, she teaches lyric singing at the University of Évora, guiding undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students, giving international masterclasses, and dedicating her research to vocal interpretation and singer training.
Aleksandar Nikolić’s Bio
Curriculum Vitae
Aleksandar Nikolić is one of the most active opera and theatre directors in Eastern Europe. He has been collaborating with Belgrade’s National Theater since 2009 and, since the 2018-19 season, also with the National Theater Novi Sad (Serbia’s first National Theatre), having been appointed Principal Opera Director there in 2023.
Mr. Nikolic studied Drama, Audiovisual Arts, Art History and Stage Design in Belgrade and served as assistant director to the 13th revival of Richard Eyre’s original 1994 production of Verdi’s ‘La Traviata’ at London’s Royal Opera House (2016).
From 2019 through 2023, he was general manager at Little Theater Duško Radović, in Belgrade, where he produced a total 22 works.
In Serbia and abroad, he moves with equal ease in opera, theatre and dance, and his work on the opera stage includes Aida, Faust and Rigoletto for the National Theatre Novi Sad, Orfeo ed Euridice, L’incoronazione di Poppea and La serva padrona at the National Theatre Belgrade, Tosca with the Belgrade Philharmonic, Don Giovanni and The Telephone for Sarajevo’s National Theatre, Don Giovanni at Universal Artists Festival (Boston), Pyramus and Thisbe and Die Fledermaus in Jerusalem and Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Vrnjačka Banja Summer Festival. Next June, he will be staging Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, the final event in Belgrade Philharmonic’s 100th Jubilee Season.
María Bayo’s Bio
Curriculum Vitae
The career of María Bayo is defined by technical excellence and interpretative versatility, qualities that have positioned her as the Spanish soprano with the greatest international projection of the last decades. Recognized, among other distinctions, with the Premio Nacional de Música in 2009 and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2023, her career stands out for a luminous vocal quality and a virtuosity that have enabled her to master more than 70 roles, ranging from the Baroque and Mozartian Classical repertoire to the Italian and French traditions as well as the zarzuela. Within her wide-ranging versatility, and beyond her Mozartian roles, highlights include characters such as Rosina, Mélisande and Ella (La Voix humaine). She is a regular presence at the great temples of opera worldwide, including Teatro alla Scala, Metropolitan Opera House, Palais Garnier and the Salzburg Festival, establishing herself as a chameleonic artist capable of bringing profound dramatic truth to each character.
Her discography is an impressive catalogue of more than thirty recordings, in which her interpretations of the music of composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gioachino Rossini and George Frideric Handel have received unanimous acclaim from critics. This artistic work is complemented by a strong commitment to the promotion of Spanish music, reviving and dignifying genres such as Baroque zarzuela and the art song repertoire. Recently, her legacy was honored with the Hitz Sariak, a distinction that celebrates her entrepreneurial spirit, her tireless dedication and her transformative influence in the cultural world.
Today, María Bayo combines her stage activity with a prolific pedagogical career, serving as vocal and musical advisor at the Centre de Perfeccionament Palau de Les Arts Reina Sofía, giving masterclasses at various prestigious institutions and acting as a jury member in some of the most demanding international singing competitions, including the Concours Musical International Reine Elisabeth de Belgique and the Concurso de Canto de Bilbao-Bizkaia Pedro Mª Unanue.
Group Masterclass
Jorge Balça
"Towards an Embodied Competition Experience"
A welcome icebreaker session covering a few fundamental acting techniques and stagecraft elements of the body in performance.
Sign-up: No sign-up needed, all contestants are expected to participate in this masterclass.
Audience: No audience members are allowed for this event.
Singing and Acting Masterclasses
All contestants who did not proceed to the Semifinal will have the opportunity to participate, free of charge, in masterclasses led by selected members of the jury and distinguished professionals from the opera world. Each contestant will have access to two sessions with two different mentors.
Sign-up: 31 May, 19:00-20:00 in Centro Cultural de Cascais on a first come first served basis.
Free admission
Sergei Leiferkus
Juliane Banse
Liliana Bizineche
María Bayo
Jorge Balça
Acting Masterclass
Jorge Balça
Sign-up: 31 May, 19:00-20:00 in Centro Cultural de Cascais on a first come first served basis.
Free admission
Masterclasses for the Semifinalists' Concert and Singing Masterclasses
All contestants who did not proceed to the Final will have the opportunity to perform in the Semifinalists’ Concert and to participate, free of charge, in masterclasses led by selected jury members and distinguished professionals from the opera world. Each contestant will have access to two sessions with two different mentors.
Sign-up: 3 June, 9:30–10:30 Centro Cultural de Cascais.
Free admission
Aleksandar Nikolić
Liliana Bizineche
María Bayo
Sergei Leiferkus
Juliane Banse
Semifinalists’ Concert, Singing and Acting Masterclasses
Aleksandar Nikolić
Jorge Balça
All Finalists will have the opportunity to participate in this acting masterclasses in preparation for the performance in the Final.
Sign-up: 2 June, after the announcement of the Finalists.
Liliana Bizineche
All Finalists will have the opportunity to participate in this singing masterclasses in preparation for the performance in the Final.
Sign-up: 2 June, after the announcement of the Finalists.
