2025 Upcoming Artists

Finnish-Canadian soprano Eilana Lappalainen has performed title roles to critical acclaim in the world's premier opera venues including Teatro alla Scala, Opera di Roma, Hamburgische Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opéra de Montréal, Bellas Artes, Teatro Verdi Trieste, New Israeli Opera, Lithuanian National Opera, Finnish National Opera, Polish National Opera, Opera North, Staatstheater Essen, Prague State Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, New York City Opera, Seattle Opera, San Francisco Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Michigan Opera, Minnesota Opera, Nashville Opera, Kentucky Opera, Portland Opera, Virginia Opera, Opera Hamilton, Opera Ottawa, Marin Opera, Arizona Opera, and Opera San Jose, and in cities such as Wiesbaden, Dessau, Halle, Mannheim, Bremen, Würtzburg, Bielefeld, and Winterthur. Her repertoire includes leading roles in Salome, Der Rosenkavalier, Arabella, Der Fliegende Holländer, Lohengrin, Fidelio, Peter Grimes, Wozzeck, Der Freischütz, Jenůfa, Giovanna D'Arco, Un ballo in maschera, I masnadieri, Il trovatore, Pagliacci, Cavalleria rusticana, Medea, Andrea Chénier, Madama Butterfly, Suor Angelica, Il tabarro, La fanciulla del West, Turandot, and Tosca.

At Carnegie Hall, she has sung Verdi, Mozart & Fauré Requiems, Zanetto, A Gala Concert, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Haydn’s Mass in Time of War, a recital in Weill Recital Hall, and recently, the New York premiere of To Be Afraid of the Dawn. Her recording of Zanetto was released in 2008 and a CD of Mahler songs was released in 2013, both on Elysium Recordings. The last few seasons, she has sung the title role in Cherubini's Medea and Nedda in I Pagliacci for the Festival of the Aegean.

Since last summer, she has performed in New York, Arizona, Catania, the Czech Republic, Germany, Vienna, Firenze, as well as working on her new recording “Dramatic Divas,” coming out in the year. Upcoming engagements include concerts in New York, China, and Italy.

Originally from Schleswig-Holstein Germany, contralto Helena Köhne studied singing at the Hamburg Conservatory and at the Berlin University of the Arts with Jutta Schlegel. After completing her studies, she worked with Ruthild Engert and Professor Stewart Emerson.

In addition to her busy concert schedule, she regularly performs at opera houses, including the Nationaltheater Weimar, the Cologne Opera, the Wiesbaden State Theater, the Nuremberg State Theater, Kaiserslautern, the Liceu Barcelona, the Dijon Opera, the Rostock Volkstheater, the Oldenburg State Theater, and the Münster Theater.

Her most important roles include Filipnjewnja in "Eugene Onegin" (Tchaikovsky), Old Burya in "Jenufa" (Janácek), and Genevieve in "Pelleas et Mélisande" by Debussy, Erda in "Rheingold" and "Siegfried" by Richard Wagner, as well as Clytemnestra in "Elektra" by Richard Strauss.

In October 2024, she won the “Ebe Stignani” Prize for Best Dramatic Voice at the International Stignani Competition in Imola, Italy.

Originally from Schleswig-Holstein Soprano Peggy Steiner was born in Dresden and grew up in a theater family. She studied at the Academy of Music "Hanns Eisler " in Berlin with Ks. Magdalena Hajossyova and participated in numerous master classes with Julia Varady, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, René Kollo and Peter Schreier. She is currently being coached by Ks. Irmgard Boas. She has been awarded scholarships from the Bayreuth Festival and the "Hans and Eugenia Jütting" Foundation. She was a finalist in the Bertelsmann Competition "Schöne Stimmen".

Peggy Steiner has performed at numerous opera houses as Komische Oper Berlin, Dresden State Operetta, Opera Dortmund, State Theater Saarbrücken, "Schweriner Schlossfestspiele" and "Dresdener Musikfestspiele". Her roles include: Sieglinde, Siegfried-Brünnhilde, Gutrune in "Der Ring des Nibelungen", Marie in "The Bartered Bride," Agathe in "Der Freischütz", Micaela in "Carmen", Countess in "Le nozze di Figaro", Rosalinde in "Die Fledermaus ", Lisa in "Land des Lächelns" and the leading role of "Frau Luna" and " Gräfin Mariza".

Peggy Steiner performed on international concert halls, including the Palais des Beaux-Arts Brussels, Lincoln Center New York, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Kimmel Center Philadelphia, Strathmore Hall Washington, and Disney Hall Los Angeles.

2025 she will make her debut as Brünnhilde in the "Walküre", and she will perform New Year's concerts in Chicago and Vancouver.

Keith Ikaia-Purdy has been described as "one of the brightest stars in the tenor firmament" (Die Welt). In a career spanning three decades on the world's leading stages, the captivating Hawaiian singer has won the admiration and affection of opera fans the world over.

Keith Ikaia-Purdy's most successful performances have included performances at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Covent Garden, La Scala in Milan, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Royal Opera of Stockholm, Bavarian State Opera, Athens Megaron, Carnegie Hall, as well as at major venues in Tokyo, Salzburg, Dresden, Zurich, Tel-Aviv, Johannesburg, Geneva, Monte Carlo, and Barcelona. He has been a featured guest of the Ravenna, Schleswig-Holstein, Florence May, Savonlinna, Ludwigsburg, Holland, Glimmerglass, Rheingau Music, Aegean and Torre del Lago/Puccini Festivals. In addition, he has performed as a star tenor in more than 260 performances at the Vienna State Opera alone, making him most closely identified with this opera house.

Alongside recordings appearing on the DGG, EMI, Koch-Schwann and Arthaus labels, Ikaia-Purdy has appeared in international television broadcasts, such as La Bohème (Berlin State Opera), Der Rosenkavalier under the direction of Carlos Kleiber from Vienna, and Mefistofele with Riccardo Muti, as well as at the Ravenna Festival, to name just a few. Due to enthusiastic reviews, the performance of Berlioz's Requiem with Keith Ikaia-Purdy and the Dresden Staatskapelle under the direction of Sir Colin Davis has also been released on CD - Awards: ECHO Klassik 2009 (Germany) and Diapason d'Or (2008 - Vocal): "Performance of the Year."

In addition to his ongoing concert work, Keith Ikaia-Purdy offers master classes and professional vocal instruction as Director of the Rheingau Institute of Vocal Arts. And, since 2012, he has been Artistic Director of Opera et Cetera.

German bass Karl Petersen studied voice at the Universität der Künste Berlin under Jutta Schlegel and Harald Stamm. He received further artistic inspiration as a master student of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, René Jacobs, and Wolfram Rieger, with whom he developed a deep engagement with both the Lied and operatic repertoire.

His operatic repertoire includes leading roles of the bass voice, such as Sarastro (The Magic Flute), King Philip (Don Carlos), Orest (Elektra), Sir Morosus (The Silent Woman), Fafner (Das Rheingold), and Samuel (Der Freischütz). Engagements have taken him to the Opernhaus Annaberg-Buchholz, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein (under the direction of Sir John Fiore), and the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden.

He particularly celebrated his performance of Mucius in Caligula by Detlev Glanert, staged at the Alte Staatsbank Berlin, and participated in modern music theater productions at the Neuköllner Oper Berlin, such as Golem (composed by Philip Glass). In Paul Hindemith’s short opera Hin und Zurück, he took on the role of the Nurse in a production by Vera Nemirova for the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

In addition to his opera career, Karl Petersen is also active as a concert and Lied singer, especially in the oratorio genre. After a professional hiatus during which he trained as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and music therapist (UdK), working in his own medical Klinik since years, he now returns to the operatic stage in the role of Orest in a new production on Syros (Greece), under the direction of Eilana Lappalainen.

Vasko Zdravkov returns to the Festival of the Aegean after performing numerous roles with the Festival. Mr. Zdravkov, was born in Radovish, Macedonia in 1989, where he completed his primary education. In 2004 he enrolled at the high musical school DMUC Sergej Mihajlov in Stip. After he finished his first year in the theoretical section, professors noticed his talent and potential and starting from the second year, he began with solo singing. In less than six months he participated at the state competition for solo singing in Skopje where he won the special first prize. He took part in the Jeunesse Musical Competition in Belgrad and the Ars Kosova Competition where he won the second prize. After finishing high school in 2008 he entered the Faculty of Music Arts for solo singing in Skopje with professor Slavica Galik Petrovska. He graduated in 2012 and finished his post graduate after one year. From then he took part in many charity concerts, autumn festivities, on the occasion of Costa Trpkov concerts with the orchestra of the Macedonian Opera and Ballet.

He works at the Macedonian Opera and Ballet, he has sung the roles of Figaro (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), the baritone solo in (Carmina Burana), Enrico (Lucia di Lammermoor), Masetto (Don Giovanni), Monterone and Marullo (Rigoletto), Sagrestano (Tosca), Mandarin (Turandot), Silvio (Pagliacci), Baron and the Marchese d’Obigny (La Traviata). As a member of the Opera Studio in the Festival of the Aegean he has sung the roles of Don Giovanni (Don Giovanni), Il Frate (Don Carlos), Prince Yamadori (Madama Butterfly), Mro. Spinelloccio (Gianni Schicchi) and Enrico (Lucia di Lammermoor). He was a soloist in John Rutter’s Mass of the Children (with John Rutter conducting) and has work experience as a member of the choir at the Theater an der Wien.

Mexican tenor Victor Campos Leal made his debut at the Breslau Opera in 2012, where he performed a variety of important roles in his field: Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Macduff (Macbeth), Alfredo (La traviata), Nemorino (The Elixir of Love), An Italian singer(Der Rosenkavalier), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Beppe (Pagliacci), Tamino (The Magic Flute), Nadir (The Pearl Fishers), Rudolfo (La Bohème), and Erik (The Flying Dutchman). In Italy, Campos Leal performed as Count Almaviva (II Barbiere di Siviglia) at the Teatro Verdi in Pordenone, followed by an engagement as Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly) at the Teatro della Concordia in Turin. He made his German debut as the Duca (Rigoletto) at the Thurn-und-Taxis Castle Festival in Regensburg. At the Gut Immling Opera Festival, he sang Alfred in Die Fledermaus.

He made his debut at the Lower Bavarian State Theater in 2015, playing the role of Arturo in Bellini's La straniera, where he has performed a variety of roles: Gennaro (Lucrezia Borgia), Lord Percy (Anna Bolena), Ismaele (Nabucco), Percy in Mary Stuard, the Helmsman in Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, the title role in The Count of Luxembourg, and Sou-Chong in The Land of Smiles—a role he also sang at the Vienna Volksoper. Most recently, he performed as Duca (Rigoletto) at the Münster Theater, Pong (Turandot) at the Aachen Theater also in Trier Theater and Don José (Carmen) at the Kraków Opera and the Peals Fischers in Wrocław.

Praised with “spinning out long phrases with the most luscious tone” (Classic Melbourne 2022) Swiss – Australian mezzo-soprano Naomi Flatman grew up in a musical home first studying the flute, playing in the youth orchestra and then singing quickly became her focus. Across Melbourne and Brisbane Naomi has performed Dido (Dido and Aeneas, Purcell) for IOpera in Melbourne, Siegrune (Die Walküre, Wagner), Wellgunde (Rheingold & Götterdämmerung, Wagner) in Melbourne Opera’s Greenroom Award winning 2023 Ring Cycle, Rosina (Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Rossini) for Opera Australia’s schools tour, Dorabella (Cosi fan Tutte, Mozart) with IOpera and The Australian Contemporary Opera Company, Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro, Mozart) with Melbourne Opera and the Lyric Opera Studio in Weimar, Germany, Flora (The Enchanted Pig) in the Australian Premiere with Australian Contemporary Opera Company and Nancy Waters (Albert Herring).

In 2023 Naomi performed in OperFest Prague. In 2022, she sang in the final rounds of the 40th Hans Gabour Belvedere International singing competition in Jurmala, Latvia. In 2021 she won the 97th Herald Sun Aria as well as Australian Liederfest and in 2018 was winner of the Australian Concerto and Vocal competition.

Naomi was a young artist with Melbourne Opera for seasons 21/22 & 22/23, during which she studied with Roxanne Hislop. Prior to this she was a young artist at the Australian Contemporary Opera Company Melbourne 2018/2019.

She has a Bachelor of Music in Advanced Performance, and a Graduate Certificate in Music studies in Opera Performance both from the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University.

Naomi is currently full time Chorus for the Tiroler Landestheater, Innsbruck for the season 24/25.

Vianca Alejandra is a Puerto Rican soprano based in New York City. In 2023 she won First Prize in the Adult Voice Classical category at the Music International Grand Prix and was a District Winner of The Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. As a member of the New York Philharmonic Chorus, she performed in the world premiere of Émigré in Shanghai, China.

Her recent roles include Kathie in The Student Prince with Regina Opera, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at the International Summer Opera Festival of Morelia, and Norina in Don Pasquale with the Greek Opera Studio. This year, she is excited to return to Syros to sing Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia.

Vianca began her musical training at age seven with the San Juan Children’s Choir. She is a former Assistant Conductor at The Dessoff Choirs and holds a Master’s degree in Voice Performance from Brooklyn College, where she received the Opera-Theater Award.

Tihomir Jakimovski enrolled in "Ilia Nikolovski Luj" state music school, music theory department, where he also studied lower music studies. During his schooling, he was noticed and guided as an exceptional talent, with which he represented the school several times at international solfège competitions, taking 2 first prizes. He then enrolled at the music academy in Skopje in the department of solo singing with M. Prof. Biljana Jakimovska(his mother), where he began to improve his vocal abilities. During his graduate studies, he performed 6 times with the MOB orchestra in honor of Prof. Kosta Trpkov at the "Young Opera Hopefuls" concert. Since 2015, he has been employed in the MOB choir, where he is also hired for soloist roles.

Bulgarian bass Petar Naydenov graduated from the National Music Academy in Sofia and made his operatic debut in 2004 as Don Giovanni at the National Opera Sofia. In 2009, he participated in Plácido Domingo’s “Operalia” competition. From 2012 to 2015, he was a member of the Vienna Volksoper, performing roles such as Ferrando (Il Trovatore), Timur (Turandot), Colline (La Bohème), Hagen (Wagner’s Ring in One Evening), and Sparafucile (Rigoletto).

Recent highlights include appearances at the Israeli Opera Tel Aviv as Mephistopheles (Faust), at Teatro Verdi Trieste as Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), and at Oper Graz as Conte di Walter (Luisa Miller), as well as singing Attila at the National Opera Tirana. He also performed as Gremin (Eugene Onegin) at Malmö Opera and as Ramfis (Aida) at the Cairo Opera and the Luxor Festival.

At the National Opera Sofia, he regularly appears Zaccaria, Prince Galitzky and Philip II. He has also performed Don Basilio in various productions, including Dario Fo’s famous staging in the Netherlands, Germany, and England, in National opera Sofia and in Helsinki under the direction of Gian Carlo del Monaco.

Fotini Athanasaki was born in Athens where she received her diploma in Tourismus and Hotel Management.

2013 she received her Singing diploma and the same year she won the scholarship of the Academy of Athens for a Master in Opera and Greek Music.

From 2011 to 2017 collaborated with Greek National Opera where she also had the chance to cover the role of Azucena in ‘Il Trovatore’.

Other roles in her repertoire are Mistress of the Novices and the Princess in ‘Suor Angelica’, Neris in ‘Medea’, Annina and Flora in ‘La Traviata’, Mama Lucia in ‘Cavalleria Rusticana’, Hannah in ‘Die Passagierin’, 2nd Magd in ‘Elekta’, Filipjewna in ‘Eugen Onegin’ and Rossweisse in ‘Die Walkure’.

As concert soloist she has performed in Greece and in Brussels, Paris, Bayreuth and Berlin. Since 2017 she has been a member of Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck.