She Runs Marathons and Sings Opera. And She Just Won $50,000.

The bright-voiced American soprano Lisette Oropesa — who is known for singing bel canto onstage and running marathons offstage — has been awarded the prestigious Richard Tucker Award, the prize’s administrators announced on Monday.

The award, which comes with $50,000 and the opportunity to headline a starry celebratory gala at Carnegie Hall on Oct. 27, is among the most sought-after prizes for young American opera singers. Many of its past recipients have gone on to stardom.

Ms. Oropesa, 35, is one of the few opera singers who have been featured in both Opera News and Runner’s World, which reported on her 2015 feat of running the Pittsburgh Marathon the morning after starring in a production of Donizetti’s “La Fille du Régiment.” The article noted that “her standing-ovation-to-marathon-time was just over 13 hours.”

She has had recent successes in both famous bel canto roles and Meyerbeer rarities. When she sang the role of Marguerite de Valois in Meyerbeer’s “Les Huguenots” at the Opéra National de Paris last fall, Zachary Woolfe wrote in The New York Times that Ms. Oropesa “sounded lucid and silky, radiating good intentions.”

Read the article at The NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/arts/music/lisette-oropesa-richard-tucker-award.html