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University of Illinois School of Music Alumna Sadie Cheslak (MM, Voice Performance and Literature, 2019) was selected as one of five winners of The Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition 2025. A distinguished honor in the world of opera, this prestigious competition showcases some of the most promising young vocalists.
Each winner received a $20,000 cash prize and the prestige, exposure, and networking opportunities that come with winning a renowned competition that has launched the careers of many of opera’s most well-known stars. The Met’s Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition is a nationwide program designed to discover promising young opera singers and assist in their artistic and professional development. Each season, more than 1,400 applicants participate in a series of auditions leading up to the Grand Finals Concert—featuring the Met Orchestra, this year conducted by Carlo Rizzi—in which a small group of finalists compete for cash prizes and the chance to launch a major operatic career. Since the program’s inauguration more than 70 years ago, the competition has discovered generations of star singers, including Jessye Norman, Frederica von Stade, Renée Fleming, Thomas Hampson, Denyce Graves, Stephanie Blythe, Sondra Radvanovsky, Lawrence Brownlee, Lisette Oropesa, Jamie Barton, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Nadine Sierra, and Ryan Speedo Green.
About Sadie Cheslak
A mezzo-soprano and Duluth native, Cheslak is a student of Dr. Ollie Watts Davis. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree from Concordia College, studying under Dr. Holly Janz, before pursuing her master’s degree at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
During her time at UIUC, Cheslak showcased her talents in numerous productions. She performed Lucretia in The Rape of Lucretia and Kate in The Pirates of Penzance, in addition to featured roles in Carmen, Dialogues of the Carmelites, Falstaff, Eugene Onegin, War and Peace, and Prince Igor in Lyric Theatre Illinois’ Opera Scenes. Her contemporary opera experience includes performances as Lumee in PRISM by Ellen Reid, the title role in The Surrogate by Sky Macklay, Jane Doe in Black Square by Ilya Demutsky, and Mary in The New Motive Power by Elizabeth Gartman.
With a strong background in choral and orchestral performance, Cheslak has also appeared as a soloist in numerous major works. While in Urbana-Champaign, she performed in The Oratorio Society’s Russian Choral Festival, singing Rachmaninoff’s Vespers and Ivan Moody’s Vespers Sequence. She also portrayed Maria in Respighi’s Lauda per la Natività del Signore and was featured as a soloist in Bach’s Weihnachts-Oratorium with the Sinfonia da Camera and Chamber Singers. With the Baroque Artists of Champaign-Urbana, she sang as the alto soloist in C.P.E. Bach’s Magnificat, J.S. Bach’s Jesu, meine Freude, and Handel’s Messiah.
Cheslak was awarded The Birgit Nilsson Award of the American-Scandinavian Foundation as part of her recent MET honor.