The Opera Awards: Stuart Skelton and Diana Damrau Win Big

On April 7, the Opera Awards were handed out at the London's Grosvenor Hotel.

The awards have been compared to the Oscars and Tonys for opera and are meant to recognize the best in the art form.

Among the winners was Diana Damrau who took the Female Singer award defeating Anja Harteros, Adrienne Pieczonka, Krassimira Stoyanova, Petra Lang, Anja Harteros, Christiane Karg, and Christine Goerke. Damrau was coming off a successful run of Bellini's "La Sonnambula" at the Metropolitan Opera.

The Best Male Singer went to Stuart Skelton. The award was one of the biggest surprises of the evening as he beat out Stéphane Degout, Bryan Hymel, Peter Mattei, Luca Pisaroni, Michael Volle, and Ludovic Tézier.

Joseph Calleja also surprised defeating a number of superstars for the Reader's Choice award. The Maltese tenor defeated Piotr Beczała, Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Juan Diego Flórez, Anna Netrebko, and Bryn Terfel

Meanwhile recent Cardiff winner Jaime Barton won the Young Singer award. Barton was also a National Metropolitan Opera Council auditions award winner and recently made hr Met debut in the fall.

Kirill Petrenko won the Conductor award over Simone Young, Mark Elder, Andris Nelsons, Teodor Currentzis and Gianandrea Noseda.

The Zurich Opera had a big night as it won Best Opera Company while Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser's production of Norma from the Salzburg Festival won the best new production award.

The deceased director Gerard Mortier won the Lifetime achievement award while the festival accolade went to the Aix-en-Provence.

Three anniversary productions were honored this year. For Britten's 100^th anniversary Aldeburgh's Festival production of "Peter Grimes" was honored. Meanwhile Hamburg's Verdi Trilogy of "La battaglia di Legnano," "I due Foscari," "I Lombardi" from the Hamburg Staatsoper won for the composer's bicentennial.

The Parsifal production from the Vlaamse Opera won the award for Wagner's bicentennial.

Riccardo Muti's "Otello" recording won the complete opera CD award. The CD stars Stoyanova, Aleksandrs Antonenko, and Carlo Guelfi. The opera also feature the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Ann Hallenberg's "Hidden Handel" album won the Best Recital award. The album features arias from a number of Handel operas and it was released by Naïve records.

The Teatro Sociale di Como won the accessibility award while the Paul Brown defeated Aleksandar Denić, Robert Jones, Brigitte Reiffenstuel, and Leslie Travers for the Designer award.

Australian director Barrie Kosky defeated superstar directors Calixto Bieito, Martin Kušej, Dmitri Tcherniakov, and Graham Vick as well as Tatjana Gürbaca. Kosky was recently appointed as the Chief Director at the Komische Oper and will later direct "Castor and Pollux" at the English National Opera, London, and "The Merchant of Venice" at the Schauspiel Frankfurt.

The DVD award went to "David et Jonathas" by Charpentier. The opera was conducted by William Christie and was released on Bel Air Classiques. The performance beat out The Gambler, Médée, Moby-Dick, Pelléas et Mélisande, The Rape of Lucretia, and The Tempest. 

The Philanthropist award went to Edgar Foster Daniels. Daniels is an accomplished actor, singer, and patron of the arts who has held leadership positions in many prestigious opera companies and music festivals. He is currently a life director of Lyric's Board of Directors, a managing director of the Metropolitan Opera Association, and serves on the board of the Washington Opera.