Filipina among winners of 2025 Laffont Competition in New York
Pinay mezzo-soprano singer Michelle Mariposa was among the winners at the recently concluded 2025 Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition.
Michelle Mariposa was among the five winners out of nine finalists at the prestigious competition. She will take home $20,000 (P1.1 million).
The competition saw 1,500 across the US, with Michelle emerging as one of 20 semifinalists and later one of nine finalists to perform at the Met.
The 30-year-old Filipino-Chinese singer from Quezon City performed Gioachino Rossini’s Semiramide, and Jules Massenet’s Werther. She donned a vibrant yellow terno by Frankie de Leon.
Other winners of the night include Sadie Cheslak from Duluth, Minnesota; Alissa Goretsky from Los Angeles, California; Emma Marhefka from Allentown, Pennsylvania; and Luke Sutliff from Denver, Colorado.
Michelle and music
The Filipina actually did not focus on her passion for music her whole life, until in college. She initially set out to pursue a career in medicine with her degree in Psychology but realized that she would never handle the “mental toll” in the field. She decided to pursue her calling and hone her skills, in music. She graduated summa cum laude in both degrees.
“Graduating summa really wasn't my goal,” Michelle previously told PhilSTAR L!fe. “My goal was to grow as a musician, to know more about this field, and to accumulate connections, repertoire, events that I can sing in, techniques that will help me as a singer,” she added.
The Pinay singer earned a full scholarship at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music and completed her Master’s in Voice and Opera Performance in 2023. She is currently a resident young artist at the Washington National Opera.
Prior to this, she has been making waves on the global stage, having won the Lynne Cooper Harvey Foundation Award (top prize) in the Musicians Club of Women 2024 Vocal Competition and the Sullivan Award from the Sullivan Foundation, among others.
Michelle is poised to become the first Filipina to win in the international opera stage since Evelyn Mandac in 1966. Filipino tenor Rodell Rosel from Manila also won the competition in 2005, he has also been nominated for a Grammy Award in 2018 for Best Opera Recording.
Founded in 1954, the Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition is the platform for discovering and helping the careers of promising young singers. Some of the well-known opera stars from the organization include Renée Fleming, Eric Owens, and Stephanie Blythe, among others. (With reports from Veronica Wuson)
