As previously I made my own lists before the official announcements.  It wads a little trickier than the art song competition because I really had no sense of how the judges would react to the loud but unexpressive Koreans.  There is after all a need in opera for powerful low voices even if they aren’t great actors.  So I made them a separate category.  So then, my guesses:

Probables: Bahg, Brancy, Chaieb, D’Angelo, Haji, Lee, Nekoranec, Nilsson, Yang

Maybes: Golovushkin, Hovhannisyan, Kyreiev, Mathieu, Mihaylov, Sproule

Probably nots: Idrisova, Koval, Margison, Muhire, Rudyk, Yangel

Fafners: Cho, Choi, Gil

I wasn’t far off.  The judges choice of the twelve semifinalists was:

• Bahg
• Brancy
• Chaieb
• Choi (the only “Fafner” to make the cut)
• D’Angelo
• Golovushkin
• Haji
• Idrisova
• Lee
• Mihaylov
• Nekoranec
• Yang

Only Idrisova surprises me but she is a very different type of singer from anyone else we heard which is rather where surprises happen.

So, nine guys, four of them Korean, and only three gals.  It’s an unusual field now.  No classic light lyric sopranos and few lyric baritones but lots of really low voices.