Tenor Daniel Espinal wins prestigious Met Opera competition

Tenor Daniel Espinal ’24MM was named a winner of the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition following a final-round performance on Sunday, March 17. Espinal, who appeared as Tom Rakewell in Yale Opera’s recent production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, is one of five competition winners, each of whom received a $20,000 cash prize and now joins a list of past winners that includes Kathleen Battle, Lawrence Brownlee, Renée Fleming, Jessye Norman, and Eric Owens, among other opera luminaries.

“Being named a winner of the Laffont Competition is a tremendous honor,” Espinal said. “Through this process I was able to reach a much wider and more diverse audience than ever before,” thanks to the Met’s livestream and satellite radio channels, on which audiences could watch and listen to the competition, and to “interviews with various industry professionals.”

“The amount of exposure that I’ve gotten from this experience alone is immeasurable,” Espinal said, “and I have a feeling that I won’t truly know that reach until many years down the line.” Espinal said he’ll use the prize money to move to Chicago, where he’ll be an apprentice artist at the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center next season. “Winning this competition has just assured me a certain financial cushion that I’ve never known,” he said. 

Gerald Martin Moore, who is Espinal’s voice teacher and serves as director of the Yale Opera, said, “The whole world watches this competition, so it’s wonderful exposure,” not just for Espinal and the other winners but for all the finalists and semifinalists. That Espinal was named a winner of the Laffont Competition at only 24, Moore said, is a testament to his talent and work ethic, given that some singers try several times to advance through the contest’s various rounds. Espinal’s success certainly reflects the “distinctive color of his voice,” which Moore said Espinal displayed during his audition for the Yale Opera Program, and “his natural charisma.” Neither of those qualities can be taught, Moore said.

Espinal’s final-round performance with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, under the baton of Evan Rogister, featured a pair of arias: “Salut! Demeure chaste et pure” from Gounod’s Faust and “De’ miei bollenti spiriti” from Verdi’s La Traviata. Ten singers participated in the Grand Final Concert having advanced from an initial pool of 1,500 applicants through district and regional auditions. Sunday’s Grand Final Concert was hosted by mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves.

The Laffont Competition, formerly the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, “is designed to discover promising young opera singers and assist in the development of their careers,” according to the Met’s website, which explains that the competition was renamed for Met Board Advisory Director Dominique Laffont and her late husband, Eric, who “have long been among the program’s most dedicated supporters.” Playbill further explains that “the Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition is considered a prestigious award for early-career opera singers.”

Espinal, who’ll appear in recital at Yale on March 28 and is expected to graduate from the School of Music in May, earned his bachelor-of-music degree the Manhattan School of Music and has participated in the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program.