Jury 2026

Sir David Pountney CBE is one of the most influential opera directors of his generation, acclaimed for his theatrical imagination, commitment to new work, and leadership of major opera houses and festivals.

In the 2025–26 season he directs the world premiere of Dorian Gray, a new opera by Elżbieta Sikora with a libretto by Sir David, at the Poznań Opera House; revives Mieczysław Weinberg’s The Passenger at Teatr Wielki in Warsaw; and returns to Grange Park Opera for the world premiere of John Tavener’s Krishna. Highlights of the 2024–25 season include Black Mask at the Poznań Opera House, La forza del destino at Theater Bonn, and Mazeppa at Grange Park Opera.

His recent work includes Masque of Might and The Cunning Little Vixen for Opera North in Leeds; Dalibor for the Janáček Theatre in Brno; The Passenger for Teatro Real in Madrid; A Masked Ball at Theater Bonn; Le nozze di Figaro for the Opera Națională in Bucharest and for the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv; Rusalka for Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico; Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for Oper Leipzig; and Figaro Gets a Divorce for Theater Magdeburg. Other notable projects include The Passenger in Houston, New York and Chicago; Kommilitonen, his third opera with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, premiered at the Royal Academy of Music in London and later at the Juilliard School in New York; and Philip Glass’s Spuren der Verirrten, created for the opening of the new opera house in Linz and awarded the Schikaneder Prize for Best Opera Production in 2013. He also staged Die Zauberflöte on the lake stage in Bregenz, where he was Intendant from 2003 to 2013.

Sir David first came to international prominence with Katya Kabanova at the Wexford Festival in 1972. He went on to serve as Director of Productions at Scottish Opera (1975–80), where he created a landmark Janáček cycle in collaboration with Welsh National Opera. He later became Director of Productions at English National Opera (1980), directing more than 20 operas and helping to position ENO as a centre of theatrical innovation.

He has directed more than 20 world premieres, including three operas by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies for which he also wrote the libretti. He has translated operas into English from Russian, Czech, German and Italian, and continues to work actively as a librettist.

From 2011 to 2019 Sir David was Artistic Director of Welsh National Opera, where his productions included Berg’s Lulu, Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, Mosè in Egitto, Pelléas et Mélisande, the world premiere of In Parenthesis, the world premiere of Elena Langer’s Figaro Gets a Divorce, and La forza del destino, which launched a Verdi trilogy. His final season at WNO featured Janáček’s Jenůfa.

Sir John Tomlinson is one of the defining basses of his generation, admired for the sheer power of his voice, his dramatic intelligence, and an unwavering commitment to storytelling on stage. Born in Lancashire, he first trained as a civil engineer, completing a BSc at Manchester University, before winning a scholarship to the Royal Manchester College of Music. There he discovered the world of opera and began the intensive vocal work that, as he often says, continues every day.

Since his professional debut in the 1970s, Sir John has sung with all of the world’s leading opera houses and festivals, including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Covent Garden, the Deutsche Oper and Staatsoper Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Paris, Geneva, Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, Munich and Glyndebourne, as well as every major British company. He made his Bayreuth Festival debut in 1988 as Wotan in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen under Daniel Barenboim and went on to sing there for eighteen consecutive seasons, in roles including Wotan, the Wanderer, Hagen, Titurel, Gurnemanz, King Marke, Heinrich and the Dutchman.

His repertoire is exceptionally wide. Signature roles include Brünnhilde’s father Wotan and the god-like Wanderer in Wagner, Gurnemanz (Parsifal), Hans Sachs (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), King Philip II and the Grand Inquisitor (Don Carlo), Ochs (Der Rosenkavalier), Claggart (Billy Budd), Bluebeard (Bluebeard’s Castle), Boris Godunov and Pimen (Boris Godunov), and Arkel and Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande). He has also been a devoted collaborator with contemporary composers, creating major roles such as the Green Knight in Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Gawain and the title role in Birtwistle’s The Minotaur.

Beyond the opera stage, Sir John has appeared in concert with leading orchestras across the UK, Europe and the United States, in repertoire ranging from Wagner and Strauss to Schoenberg. His extensive discography includes more than 80 recordings on CD and DVD, among them Der Ring des Nibelungen, Parsifal, Bluebeard’s Castle and The Minotaur.

In addition to his international performing career, he is a dedicated mentor to young singers. He regularly leads masterclasses and workshops, and he serves as President of the Royal Northern College of Music — the institution where he first trained — supporting the next generation of vocal artists.

Sir John Tomlinson was appointed CBE in 1997 and was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2005.

Paul McNamara is an Irish tenor whose career has taken him to many of Europe’s leading opera houses and concert halls, as well as major international stages in North and South America, Africa and Asia.

He made his Venice debut at Teatro La Fenice in the title role of Wagner’s Tannhäuser under Omer Meir Wellber, and earned critical acclaim at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in Braunfels’ Szenen aus dem Leben der heiligen Johanna. His North American debut with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein in Max von Schillings’ Mona Lisa was widely praised by both audiences and critics.

Further operatic engagements include appearances at Teatr Wielki (Warsaw), Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie (Brussels), NI Opera, Cape Town Opera, Opera Leśna in Sopot, Opera Ireland, the Janáček Festival in Brno, the National Opera in Almaty, the Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, and with the Salzburg Festival at the Beijing Music Festival. Recent and upcoming performances include work with Dutch National Touring Opera (Nederlandse Reisopera), Staatsoper Berlin, Saarländisches Staatstheater Saarbrücken, the Opéra Royal de Versailles and Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg.

On the concert platform, McNamara has sung in many of the world’s leading venues, among them the Berlin Philharmonie, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Carnegie Hall in New York. He has also appeared at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, at the Telemann Festival in Hamburg with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, in Paris with the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France (in scenes from Die Walküre and Parsifal), and with the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra (Siegfried, Act III).

His repertoire is extensive and stylistically wide-ranging. In addition to Wagner roles such as Claudio (Das Liebesverbot), Erik, Loge, Tannhäuser, Tristan, Siegfried, Mime and Parsifal, he has performed music by Monteverdi, Cavalli, Mozart, Weber, Meyerbeer, Tchaikovsky, Leoncavallo, Dvořák, Richard Strauss, Janáček, Zemlinsky, Schönberg, Berg, Britten, Previn, Penderecki and Adams.

Alongside his performing career, Paul McNamara is Artistic Leader of the Dutch National Opera Academy (DNOA). A joint master’s programme of the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and the Royal Conservatoire The Hague, the DNOA offers comprehensive professional training for young opera singers. The two-year curriculum combines high-level technical refinement with the development of artistic identity, stagecraft, professional resilience and industry awareness. The programme aims to equip emerging artists to enter a competitive international field with clarity and confidence. Each season, the DNOA presents several full-scale opera productions and maintains strong links with the professional opera world. Graduates of the DNOA can be found on the stages of leading opera houses worldwide. He currently also serves as casting director for the AVROTROS concert series.

Tobias Hasan has served as Artistic Director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin since 2013. Prior to this appointment, he was Casting Director and Senior Booker at the Hamburg State Opera.

After completing his vocal studies at the University Mozarteum Salzburg, he joined the Salzburg Festival and went on to work in the press departments of the international record labels Teldec, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca and EMI Classics.

He is a frequent jury member at major international competitions, including the Francisco Viñas International Singing Competition in Barcelona, Plácido Domingo’s Operalia, the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg and the Moniuszko Competition in Warsaw.

Tobias Hasan works in close artistic collaboration with leading conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Christian Thielemann, Zubin Mehta, Sir Antonio Pappano and Sir Simon Rattle.

British soprano Susan Bullock is internationally acclaimed for her fearless stagecraft, powerful vocal presence, and the profound emotional truth she brings to performance. Equally at home in the vast psychological worlds of Wagner and Strauss and in bold contemporary work, she is recognised as one of the leading dramatic sopranos of her generation.

In recent seasons she has taken on a series of striking character roles, including a “chilling” Kabanicha (Káťa Kabanová) at Grange Park Opera; Klytämnestra (Elektra) for both Canadian Opera Company and Oper Frankfurt; and Kostelnička (Jenůfa) for Den Norske Opera and English National Opera. Her artistic range extends beyond the traditional repertoire: she has sung Mrs Lovett (Sweeney Todd) for Houston Grand Opera and Scottish Opera; The Mother in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek in Edinburgh, Glasgow and New York; and The Mother in Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves at the Opéra Comique. Her collaboration with director Daisy Evans on a radical reimagining of Bluebeard’s Castle — reframed as an exploration of dementia — has been performed in London, Atlanta and Wellington.

Recent and upcoming engagements include Lady Billows (Albert Herring) for Scottish Opera, the world premiere of Mikael Karlsson’s Fanny and Alexander at La Monnaie / De Munt, and Cosima Wagner in the critically acclaimed UK premiere of Avner Dorman’s Wahnfried for Longborough Festival Opera. She returns to Bluebeard’s Castle in Helsinki, and will create the role of Iwana — written for her by Missy Mazzoli — in the new opera The Galloping Cure for the Edinburgh International Festival and Norrlandsoperan.

A celebrated interpreter of Wagner’s Brünnhilde, Bullock made history as the first soprano to sing four consecutive Ring cycles at the Royal Opera House under Sir Antonio Pappano. Her portrayal of Strauss’s Elektra, another signature role, has taken her to major houses worldwide — including her debut at the Metropolitan Opera — and to collaborations with conductors such as Fabio Luisi, Semyon Bychkov, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Mark Elder and Edo de Waart.

On the concert platform, she has appeared with leading orchestras and conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen and Zubin Mehta, in repertoire ranging from Schoenberg’s Erwartung and Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder to the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde. Beyond the opera and concert stage, she has reached wide audiences with appearances at the Last Night of the BBC Proms and the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. She also made her spoken theatre debut as Goneril in Keith Warner’s staging of King Lear at The Grange Festival.

Her discography — from Salome with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Sir Charles Mackerras, to Der Ring des Nibelungen with Oper Frankfurt, to her personal project Songs My Father Taught Me — reflects both vocal stature and artistic curiosity.

Alongside her performing career, Susan Bullock is a committed mentor. She works closely with young singers at the National Opera Studio and in masterclasses across the UK, sharing her experience with the next generation.