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The Scene Room
The Scene Room Podcast spotlights the movers and makers redefining the performing arts—focusing on innovative marketing, leadership, and the importance of collaboration. Hosted by Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bowman, with a keen eye on audience trends and cultural shifts, the goal is to explore how artists and organizations are connecting with communities, shaping the future, and redefining what it means to engage and inspire.
The Scene Room
Harry Hyman — Founder of The International Opera Awards: “The Toscas, Not the Oscars”
Ever wondered what drives the International Opera Awards? British entrepreneur Harry Hyman takes us behind the curtain of the Awards, revealing how a passion project has transformed into a pivotal force in the opera world.
The awards serve a triumvirate of purposes - distributing roughly $100,000 annually in bursaries to emerging talents, celebrating excellence across all facets of opera production, and perhaps most crucially, dismantling the elitist stereotypes that keep potential audiences away. "People from a younger generation might be put off by the notion that opera is only for extremely wealthy people, that it's very long and can be very dull," Hyman explains, highlighting the awards' mission to change these perceptions.
What began as a London-based ceremony has blossomed into a truly global celebration, with previous ceremonies hosted in Madrid, Warsaw, and Munich. The 2025 awards will unfold at Athens' Stavros Niarchos Foundation Opera House on November 13th, with nominations open until August 31st. Last year saw over 16,000 nominations flooding in across 24 categories, each carefully evaluated by a distinguished jury of opera experts.
The real magic happens in the careers launched and elevated through these recognitions. Previous Young Singer winners like Ermonela Jaho and Aigul Akhmetshina have rocketed to international acclaim, while bursary recipients gain priceless exposure performing before the opera world's luminaries. As one judge aptly dubbed them, these aren't the Oscars but the "Toscas of opera" - a fitting tribute to an art form that, as Hyman reminds us, speaks to our most fundamental emotions: "lust, envy, love, seduction, deception."
Ready to nominate your opera heroes? Visit operaawards.org and become part of this remarkable celebration of an art form that continues to evolve while honoring its rich traditions.
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Hi, I'm Elizabeth Bowman and welcome to the Scene Room. Today I have British entrepreneur Harry Hyman in the room. He is the founder of the International Opera Awards. These awards are happening this year in Athens. They are going to be hosted by the Greek National Opera on November 13th. Nominations are open right now. Anyone can submit a nomination. By the way, you can nominate individuals or companies, depending on the category, and you can submit your nominations until August 31, 2025. If you're enjoying the podcast, please do like, share, review, do any of those things. It really helps keep these conversations going. The winners will be announced at the ceremony on November 13th, so get in there at operaawardsorg. Anyway, I'm delighted to have Harry here and looking forward to talking to him about the evolution of these awards and their role in the industry. So let's get to it, harry. Thanks so much for being on the Scene Room.
Speaker 2:It's my pleasure, nice to see you today.
Speaker 1:For my listeners who may not be familiar with you, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and your role with the International Opera Awards?
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. So I'm an entrepreneur, I work in commercial property by training, I'm a chartered accountant, but one of my passions, which I inherited from my parents, is the love of opera. And within my publishing business, which I have as well, we run very successful award ceremonies and the idea occurred to me one day that perhaps we should have an awards for international opera and, having researched that, I started in 2012 and 2013. And now the International Opera Awards, I think, is probably the premier set of awards for opera from around the world.
Speaker 2:But commercial property is my business and International Opera Awards is run as a pro bono project, really, in order to generate funds for aspiring talent in opera, to whom we give bursaries each year. As a pro bono project, really, in order to generate funds for aspiring talents in opera, to whom we give bursaries each year. Something around $100,000 each year we give out and this really helps young people not necessarily young, but mainly young people and mainly singers, but not exclusively singers to develop their careers within the wonderful world of opera.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Can you remember the first opera that you saw?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was La Clemenza di Tito, which was not perhaps the most thrilling opera to see, but it was a nice, quite traditional production at the Opera House, Royal Opera House in London. But the second one I saw was Turin Lutz, a wonderful production, and that really got me hooked, Although my tastes have changed and moved on and they're quite cosmopolitan. But I think opera is like a wonderful art form, a combination of music and singing and drama and scenery, and it talks about the basic human emotions lust, envy, love, seduction, deception and I think it's a wonderful cultural form, very expensive cultural form, but a wonderful one nonetheless.
Speaker 1:I'm also from an operatic background, so I absolutely agree with you and I think that really anyone who goes into experience opera it's certainly an experience that I wish more people would have, and obviously part of the role of this podcast is talking about marketing strategies for the performing arts and a lot about symphony and opera and how to get people into the halls to experience that in an effective community growing way, and that's also why you're on the podcast, because I think that the role of the International Opera Awards is really important. You mentioned that you're giving bursaries to emerging artists, which is an important role, but also in terms of the visibility of the industry across the world. So thank you, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think our aims are really threefold A, to provide those bursaries that I talked about, but secondly, to recognize and reward success, because I think that's a kind of a basic human emotion to be thanked and celebrated if you've done something particularly well and people who receive our awards and companies that receive our awards are over the moon about it.
Speaker 2:Frankly, and very importantly, to kind of raise the profile of opera and perhaps remove some of the mystique or the things that turn people off opera. And, interestingly, in this year's awards, which will be held in Athens in November November the 13th to be precise we're introducing a new category called musical theatre, and I don't want to do down the word opera, because we all understand what opera is and there's a lot of merit in it. But people who are from a different generation, much younger, they, might be put off by the notion that opera is only for extremely wealthy people, that it's very long and it can be very dull and that you have to put on a tux in order to go and see an opera, which is certainly not true, and pretty much all the opera houses that I've been to have programs for younger people and a lot of outreach to take the joys of music into schools and prisons and unusual situations where people may not have had the opportunity of benefiting from experiencing music and singing in a live format.
Speaker 1:It's funny to think about opera in terms of this elitist form. I guess the perception is brought home by its portrayal in movies and television as well, because often when they're going to the opera they do dress in tuxes. Then you think of the storylines in these productions and the humanity of it all, and really that's what it is.
Speaker 2:It's just underscoring everyday emotions, or an autocrat, a traviata operas like that, which have storylines that are kind of like eternal, I guess, and they can be presented in lots of different settings rather than just necessarily the traditional settings. But I think a combination is a good idea. Anyway, I don't judge the awards. I want to make that perfectly clear. I facilitate them because I don't have the vast range of experience that our panel of jurors, which is something like 24 Strong, headed by John Allison of Opera Magazine, who now incorporates Opera News. They really have seen the best in opera from each year and, of course, it's open to anyone to nominate. Last year we had just over 16,000 entries from around the world and if you go to our website, which is operaawardsorg, you'll be able to nominate for this year and I encourage people to do that. If you don't nominate someone, they can't win.
Speaker 1:In terms of the nomination, do you get one nomination per person, like per email?
Speaker 2:address. Well, we monitor it because some people try to get their entire extended family to nominate themselves. So we have to go through a sieve in order to eliminate those people who may have been gaming the system. But no, I guess it's sort of one nomination per email address for each category, but we have like 24 or 25 categories this year, so there's plenty of scope for people to nominate.
Speaker 2:And I think it's rather nice if someone who's been to see a wonderful performance gets the chance to nominate the director or the lighting designer or the costume designer or the orchestra or the chorus or any of the singers. And you know, I guess there must be hundreds of people involved in most large opera company productions, not just the people on stage, the orchestra, the chorus. I was at a wonderful production of Simon Bocanegra at Grange Park Opera the other day and the chorus was like 50 people it was about the same as the orchestra, I guess. And so that's, you know, leaving aside the principal singers, of whom there might have been six, that's like 106, 110 people without including the people who designed the costumes, the sets, etc. Etc. So I think it's a magnificent enterprise, and to pull off an opera is, I guess. I'm sure something goes wrong in each performance and it's a question of getting through without too many people noticing, I guess.
Speaker 1:They're all professionals. The show must go on Exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I was talking to quite a famous tenor, someone who's won one of our awards historically I won't say whom and he was recounting an experience when he was singing in Turandot, as it happens, and the two singers just missed out a whole part of the aria. I don't know what happened. They lost concentration and the conductor kind of recovered the position and the orchestra kind of twigged and on they went, and I don't think that many people would have noticed, you know. So it's like amazing. That's the joy, isn't it, of live performance you don't know quite what's going to happen yeah, and then the story is after, when you hear about it, can I?
Speaker 1:know how the the awards have evolved like in the first iteration of these awards. How many awards did you give out and what have you added?
Speaker 2:Well, my experience in awards from the commercial side means that I think it's rather difficult to have more than 20, between 20 and 25, because the audience generally lose concentration and it becomes a little bit tedious. So that's our working number. Originally we started doing it as a dinner with an awards and now we split the two because many people who come to the awards don't want to go to the dinner and people who come to the dinner, they don't want to sit through the awards, they want to have a gala and a wonderful time and hopefully donate us a lot of money. The second way it's changed is that in lockdown, which has had an enormous impact on everything really in society, we managed to pull off the awards in 21 to cover the lockdown period, and it was so successful doing it online and virtually. I had people ringing me up saying how did you manage to do all that and coordinate? And I had to kind of say to them well, of course it was all pre-recorded, but one of the things that came out of the pandemic was that up to that stage, we done everything in London and that's home for me, but it isn't necessarily the home of every opera company in the world, obviously, and so since then we've gone international and we tend to use the awards with the receiving house that hosts it as a kind of showcase for its own country, its music and its singers, and Juan Matabosh, who is in charge of the Teatro Real in Madrid, was the first person to offer that to us.
Speaker 2:Back in 22, I think In 23, we went to Warsaw. We were supposed to go to Ukraine but for obvious reasons we couldn't go there. And in 24, we went to the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. And in 25, we're going to the new opera house, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Opera House, near Athens or in Athens, and I have a fond hope that one day we'll be able to come to America or outside of the European continent. But these things are quite difficult to organise logistically. But I have been talking to a particular opera house which is celebrating an important anniversary next year about whether we could do it there, but I'm I'm not. I can't tell you who it is at the moment because it's not confirmed but that would be really great if we could do that well.
Speaker 1:I think it's a privilege for an opera company to host the international opera awards and showcase also the relationships with the other houses around the world and have all these general directors present as well.
Speaker 2:Young singers, their orchestra, their national music, everything that they want to put onto a world stage. Because we screen this and that's another way the awards have changed we now, with Opera Europa, we screen the event live and then we have it available on our website in an edited format forever, and that, I think, is a very good way to cover off time zones. It's more environmentally friendly, people don't have to travel there to see it and it's there as a as a record and the show, which is probably two hours long, with a short interval in the middle. It's a very good celebration of opera. The people who've won hopefully are able to attend, and one of the judges has called our awards the Tosca's of opera not the Oscars, but the Tosca's and I think people around you know people like me are always very pleased and they show their award and show it with pride.
Speaker 1:I also love that you guys have a really spectacular red carpet spectacular red carpet, so you really treat it like the Oscars and you have an emerging artist that often acts as a roving reporter, right Like interviews the more seasoned artists, which I think is a really great networking tool and it's brilliant profile for our bursary winners.
Speaker 2:We normally have at least one bursary winner from the year before who we allow to sing. We had a particular favourite of mine, jack Holton, who was really made up about singing. You know he had Vladimir Jourovsky conducting the orchestra of the Bayerische Staatsoper in front of maybe 300 or 400 people from around opera in the world. That was a brilliant opportunity for him and that's great for our bursary winners to get profiled. So it's not just about the money, it's about the connections that can be made as a result of being a bursary winner. So I mean, that's the bursaries, but equally from the awards, the Young Singer of the Year. We've had some fantastic people who've won Justina Gringaita, I think, ermanella Yaho won, we've got Egil Kotmansmansina who's won, and so on we go, and this is just brilliant for these people's careers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really fantastic. I know Joyce Elkhoury has performed at the awards before. She's a wonderful soprano and was a client of mine at the time. That was a great opportunity, and also Wallace Junta.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's amazing, she's amazing.
Speaker 1:Do you think the definition of excellence in opera is changing, even though it's a historic art form and and these things, or I guess with the addition of digital tools and that kind of thing, the art form is somewhat transforming. So the way one might judge opera have to add these in, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's. I think it's inevitable as technology changes. And to me, this is my. I think it's inevitable as technology changes. And to me this is my personal view, it's not the view of the judges. I don't mind if things are a little bit mic'd, hence musical theatre. You know, is Verona mic'd or is it not mic'd? I think it's throw mic'd and to me it's a little bit of a. You know, I know some people really object to it, and that's fine. You know, that would be more of a traditional performance in in a theater. But not everything needs to be produced in the theater. And al fresco productions, nothing wrong with them, and I so I've got very catholic tastes and so you know, uh, so to me it doesn't matter, but that's my view, it's not. It's not the view of the judges, because I'm not a judge yeah, no, it's.
Speaker 1:it's interesting because you they have the high definition cinematography shows now, which are obviously the way those are produced. They're live performances, but I mean, it's incredible what they're able to do.
Speaker 2:Well, in a way it's it's you want to see it two ways. Somebody described it as a sort of a brilliant close up and having the interviews with someone like Rene Fleming interviewing someone, immediately they've come off stage, it's like really fascinating and I think that's really interesting, but to me that's always a bit 2D right right and I think, I think opera is really a 3D experience, but you know, I mean it's.
Speaker 2:It's one way of seeing a new work. I saw a brilliant new work from Peter Gelb's Met, the one about the drone pilot oh yeah, grounded grounded. Yeah, I mean, I saw that in the cinema. It was amazing, it really was amazing. I'd rather gone to the met, but you know, that's quite a, that's quite a big adventure to see one, one, one opera and one performance I was there at opening night in person, emily d'angelo was just yeah, fantastic and such a powerful theme and topic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I mean the reviews were polarizing though for that show. It was interesting to read about it after the fact, having been there to see it, I liked it. I mean, I also am just a huge fan of Emily D'Angelo's instrument. Like she's just so even across the board, like when she sings it's just able to connect to that character and encouraging new audiences to come to opera.
Speaker 2:And if they come to that, maybe they'll then say, well, why don't I go and see Traviata or Aida or something more traditional? So I think it's a good way to go and I really respect Peter for for doing that, because I think it's a good way to go and I really respect peter for for doing that, because I think it's it's not at all easy. Uh, and I'm sure it's quite bold. Uh, here in london opera holland park, which is a lovely festival outdoors, slightly covered, they did a wonderful new opera by called itch by jonathan dove, which is about environmentalism, and when, when it premiered, there was a lot of young people in the audience, a lot of young people in the audience. So that's really great to see because that's the future of opera yeah, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1:So when one looks at the value of these various outreach tools, like the high definition film, of course, that eventually you're going to want to move the experience into the real thing, and I guess that's the same with really any any experience that you watch a show and then you're like, well, maybe you know I'm really into some sort of football or something. You know I like watching football on a tv, but maybe one day you don't want to go to the stadium and it is an entirely different experience yeah, there's a brilliant opera by by turnage called the silver Tassie, which I can't work out why it was never.
Speaker 2:It hasn't been done again. It was done by the ENO and I went to the English National Opera and I went to the premiere. It's about a football match between the British and German troops. It's a true story. On Christmas Day sometime in the First World War they put down their arms and had a football match and then went back to killing each other the next day. It's a pretty extraordinary story, and football is a big connector, isn't it? And sport is a big connector.
Speaker 1:So are you a sports fan? Do you have a team?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I like British sports, so rugby, uh, rugby union and and cricket so it's a bit different from american football and and baseball and ice hockey. But I like all sorts of sports so it's a question of fitting it all in.
Speaker 1:I was born in durham, so I have right okay the british blood in me, and my parents live in winchester, so it's you can't get much more blue blooded than winchester.
Speaker 2:It's a beautiful. It's a beautiful city with a beautiful river going through it's amazing.
Speaker 1:It's very idyllic yeah.
Speaker 2:I do I do like going.
Speaker 1:I'm going in, I think, next week, to visit them.
Speaker 2:Come and say hello when you're in London.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so wonderful to have Harry Hyman on as a guest and to learn more about the international opera awards. That marks the final episode of season one of the Scene Room. When I launched the Scene Room, it was with one mission to spotlight the movers and makers, redefining the performing arts, not just the work they create, but the way they lead, collaborate and connect. In a time of shifting audiences, evolving platforms and new pressures, I wanted to know how are artists and organizations responding? Reimagining, rebuilding and really season one is tip of the iceberg. I feel like we're just getting started.
Speaker 5:On social media specifically, we always recommend a three-legged stool of content. Sometimes artists get a little too self-focused or can get to the point of having their audiences be alienated because it's a little too promotional. The question of do we serve the art?
Speaker 1:or do we serve the community? Do we serve the art or do we serve the customer? You know versions of that question. First off, not mutually exclusive. Season one was a conversation across disciplines about marketing and movement, leadership and legacy, but more than anything it was about people, artists and administrators with vision, grit and generosity.
Speaker 5:When you sign up to buy a certain pair of shoes, they want your email and your cell phone number to be able to send marketing to your phones, your email and your cell phone number to be able to send marketing to your phones. So the way that we can target who gets certain emails, who you can leave off, who you can include, it seems like the fundamentals of advertising don't apply to many symphony orchestras and it's just very puzzling to me.
Speaker 8:It's interesting. I was just talking the other day with Andrew Taylor, who runs the Arts Administration Program at American University in Washington, and he was sort of saying what advice do you have for students who are coming through these programs now? And I would say definitely, given the world that we're in and that we're heading into, the reliance on the old systems and the old models I think is setting people up for failure, even with movie premieres of new films, when that can happen, it does bring people out and it gets media coverage and people are discovering that cinema is not dead.
Speaker 9:It's definitely like everything else is changing and our habits are changing, but it still is a draw. Having a human experience, sharing an experience on film in a dark room with strangers still has an appeal.
Speaker 1:And what I heard again and again were the stories behind the stories, the unseen labor, the creative pivots, the personal truths behind the performing arts.
Speaker 7:Success is defined locally, and it doesn't matter how smart you are. It doesn't matter what strategies you think you may have access to. It's ultimately about. Are you doing good for the community?
Speaker 4:The way that I design a sound in a cast is almost like if I was going to sing it right. So it's very personal which colors, which sounds, which personalities I feel are going to transmit what I want to say in that piece. And that's my little part that I add to whatever the conductor, the performer, the designer, the director does.
Speaker 6:I've given up on reviews. I've given up on somebody else doing any PR for us. I think we can be the media now. That's why I have my own podcast. That's why I have in charge of all of my social channels. That's why I have help with all of my social channels. We are the media now.
Speaker 1:These conversations weren't about perfection. They were about process, and they showed me that the future of the arts is being written by the people who are listening, adapting and showing up with clarity and courage.
Speaker 3:And that's the formation of the new audience coming into the opera house. Maybe those students become new fans, become new donors, become opera singers themselves. You know, that's how we continue our business forward.
Speaker 7:We do have some fantastic faculty here who are really quite adept at helping students sometimes get out of their comfort zone. Right, If you're used to spending all of your time playing the clarinet really well in a practice room or in an orchestra, you have to practice. You have to practice getting out in front of people and being able to talk to them about your art form.
Speaker 1:If you've been tuning in, thank you. Thank you for caring about this world and for helping build a room where new ideas, connections, perspectives can take shape.
Speaker 2:My advice would be just listen to yourself. Follow that road, because that's the road that is speaking to you and you need to listen to yourself. Look that road, because that's the road that is speaking to you and you need to listen to yourself.
Speaker 10:Look what Kronos did. I think one direction that we are very interested in going is actually younger and to your point building the future audience goers, building the future instrument learners, building the future music teachers, but also building future scientists, building future engineers, building future writers.
Speaker 1:While season two is already in motion and I can't wait to share more about what's next. In the meantime, you can share episodes, you can like episodes, you can talk about the podcast, you can donate to the podcast on thesceneroomcom. You can help in a variety of ways. So thank you for your support and we will see you in season two. Thank you.
