San Francisco soprano Esther Tonea, an Adler fellow with the San Francisco Opera and an alumna of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, was among the winners of the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition on Sunday, May 1.

The six winners of the prestigious and lucrative event, formerly known as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, each receive a $20,000 cash award and a vigorous career boost. A 2009 winner of the competition, soprano Nadine Sierra — herself a former Adler fellow — hosted Sunday’s Grand Finals concert on the Met stage, during which each of 10 finalists sang operatic excerpts.

Tonea, 28, is in her second year as an Adler fellow. As a 2019 participant in the Merola Opera Program, she was a standout in the world premiere of “If I Were You” by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer and made a profound impression in that summer’s Grand Finale concert. When live performances resumed after the COVID lockdown, Tonea took part in the Adler fellows showcase concert, “The Future Is Now,” with a formidable aria from Bellini’s “Il Pirata.”

This year’s Met competition attracted an initial pool of more than 1,100 applicants from the U.S. and internationally. Those were narrowed over successive rounds to 21 semifinalists.

Along with Tonea, other winners were sopranos Julie Roset and Alexandra Razskazoff, mezzo-soprano Anne Marie Stanley, tenor Matthew Cairns, and bass-baritone Le Bu.

Previous winners of the competition who have gone on to acclaimed careers include sopranos Renée Fleming and Sondra Radvanovsky, mezzo-sopranos Stephanie Blythe and Jamie Barton, and tenors Michael Fabiano and Lawrence Brownlee. “The Audition,” a 2008 feature-length documentary by director Susan Froemke, depicts the previous year’s iteration in depth.