Canadian soprano Lauren Margison received both First Place and the Audience Prize at the recent Elizabeth Connell Prize: International Singing Competition, held in London in early June.
Run under the auspices of the Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation, the competition was established in 2014 from a legacy left by the late South African soprano, Elizabeth Connell. Connell’s repertoire ranged from Rossini, Mozart and Bellini to Strauss, Verdi and Wagner. It was her love of the dramatic repertoire which led her to establish the Elizabeth Connell Prize. The competition’s aim, based on Connell’s own wishes, is to foster aspiring young dramatic female voices. It is open to sopranos and mezzo-sopranos under the age of 35 who show the potential to sing the more dramatic repertoire.
In the 2024/25 season, Lauren Margison sang Mimì in Opéra de Montréal’s production of La bohème and the title role in Alceste with Opera in Concert. As a Fest singer with Staatsoper Mainz, she has sung Nedda (Pagliacci), Desdemona (Otello) and Anna (Puccini’s Le villi), and other roles in her repertoire include Micaëla (Carmen) and Tatyana (Eugene Onegin). An alumna of the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio, Lauren was a member of the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal, a laureate of Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques, and won the George London Grand Prize in 2018 (with fellow grand prize winners from Canada Rihab Chaieb and Emily D’Angelo), the Sullivan Foundation Grand Prize (2024) and the inaugural Rumbold Vocal Prize (2022).
As First Place winner at this year’s Elizabeth Connell Prize, Margison received an award of £15,000, with an addition £500 awarded for the Audience Prize. Other prize winners came from the US and Norway. One other Canadian, mezzo-soprano Ilanna Starr, reached the quarter-finals of this year’s competition.
Everyone at Opera Canada sends our congratulations to Lauren on this wonderful achievement.
