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Russian soprano Ekaterina Scherbachenko, Â鶹Éç Cardiff Singer of the World 2009.

Ekaterina Scherbachenko from Russia

After an exciting night in St David's Hall, we have a new Â鶹Éç Cardiff Singer of the World!

Two sopranos, one tenor, one bass and one counter-tenor, all performing at the top of their form. But there can only be one winner, and the winner tonight is Russian soprano Ekaterina Scherbachenko, with her dazzling programme of music in three languages - none of them her own.

The prize is £15,000 and a trophy, and the possibility of engagements with the Â鶹Éç and Welsh National Opera.

Also awarded tonight was the Audience Prize, on the basis of the performances in the preliminary round. Thousands of people phoned in to register their vote over the last couple of days, and the winner of the £2,000 prize is Giordano Lucà, the Italian tenor.

Giordano is the youngest competitor, aged 21, and this is the first time he has ever performed with orchestra. He clearly has a very big career ahead of him.

Frockwatch is back! Maggi Willis has taken time out of her busy schedule to get here for the last weekend - she's been keeping up with the competition all week from afar and gives us her thoughts on the styles seen onstage until tonight. Read her account and see photos.

Come back soon to see what Maggi made of the Final frocks.

Friday night saw the St David's Hall stage strangely empty - except for the gleaming grand piano, which would be supporting the singers in the Â鶹Éç Cardiff Singer of the World Song Prize final.

There had been a dramatic development on Friday morning. The Croatian baritone, Tomislav Lu�ić, who had been due to sing first in the final, had to withdraw as he was unwell. Eri Nakamura from Japan stepped in at the last moment, and her accompanist, Royal Opera House Jette Parker Young Artists' Programme director, David Gowland, had to locate his tailsuit and rush back to Cardiff from London.

The rules allow for the singers' programmes to repeat material from their preliminary round in the final, except that the final programme has to include at least one different piece. However, Eri's programme was completely different from the one she had chosen for Recital Four on Tuesday so getting into the 'zone' for the Song Prize final would have been quite a big task. But Eri is used to last minute changes - recently she was covering Anna Netrebko at the Royal Opera House and had to go on at short notice when Netrebko was indisposed.

Eri is also preparing for Sunday's main prize final, so altogether it is turning out to be a particularly busy couple of days for her.

Also taking part in both finals are Czech bass Jan Martiník and Ukrainian counter-tenor Yuriy Mynenko. Yuriy was next on after Eri, and he sang a very wide-ranging programme. His seven items were by six composers, ranging from the 17th century opera composer Cesti through to the 1935 popular song Non ti scordar di me, written by De Curtis for Gigli. Along the way, he sang Russian, Polish and Ukrainian as well as Italian. Just before singing his last item, Yuriy had a little discussion with his accompanist, Tamara Panska - maybe about the tempo? Who knows?

Baritone Javier Arrey performed third. Unusually for a South American, he seems to favour East European repertoire, and has included Dvořák's Biblical Songs in all three of his programmes, with the first five of the song cycle in this recital. Greatly contrasting with the Dvořák were his Ravel chanson and Schubert's Erlkönig, the only singer to offer this piece which has so often featured in the Song Prize in previous years.

The first part of Czech bass Jan Martiník's programme followed a theme of death: a bloodthirsty warrior, lovers in a cemetery and skeletons at Halloween featured in his three Saint-Saëns numbers. The remaining three songs, by Schumann and Schubert, reflected the more usual themes of love and loss found in Lieder.

Last to sing was soprano Natalya Romaniw from Wales. Her programme, of six items by six composers and in five languages, also covered a huge range of styles and emotions. Seductive in Purcell, pensive in Brahms, flirtatious in Delibes, sorrowful in Rakhmaninov, playful in a nursery rhyme by Britten and nostalgic in a beautiful Welsh song, Mae hiraeth yn y môr - the first time the Welsh languages has featured in the competition.

Read the full programme details of all the music performed in the Song Prize final.

The jury spent some time deliberating before declaring the Â鶹Éç Cardiff Singer of the World Song Prize winner to be Jan Martiník. He was clearly delighted and moved - but there was no time to celebrate - he must start preparing in earnest for Sunday's final.

If you weren't able to be there, listen to Â鶹Éç Radio 3 tonight at 8.15pm, or Â鶹Éç Radio Cymru tomorrow at 2pm. Extended highlights will be shown on Â鶹Éç Four on Friday 19 June at 7.30pm.

The finalists for the 2009 Â鶹Éç Cardiff Singer of the World competition have been announced.

Yuriy Mynenko, Ekaterina Shcherbachenko, Jan Martiník, Eri Nakamura and Giordano Lucà

'Last five' are the words which best describe the Thursday night of Cardiff Singer. Not only does the audience hear the last five competitors taking part in Â鶹Éç Cardiff Singer of the World, but they also get to find out which five singers from the twenty-five who came to Cardiff will sing in Sunday's final.

New Zealand's Wade Kernot entertained the audience at St David's Hall with his rendition of Leporello's Catalogue Aria. He consulted a Cardiff Singer leaflet as his list of women Don Giovanni has seduced - let's hope none of the 1,003 ('mille e tre') from Spain alone include any of our Cardiff Singer competitors!

Irish soprano Helen Kearns included a beautiful and little-heard piece from Stravinsky's Le Rossignol, one of the few 20th century offerings of the competition.

It's always good to hear the Italian tenor voice, and the audience enjoyed Giordano Lucà's programme of top tenor hits. Twenty-one-year-old Giordano, the youngest competitor this year, also seemed to be enjoying himself - this was the first time ever that he has performed with orchestra.

Andorran baritone Marc Canturri's programme included the charming song of Queen Mab from Gounod's Roméo et Juliette along with an aria from a little-known piece by Donizetti, Emilia di Liverpool.

Last to sing was Portuguese soprano Dora Rodrigues, who brought three very different roles to the stage - Marguérite from Faust, enjoying trying on her jewels; the sick Mimì as she parts from Rodolfo; and the seductress Giuditta, from Lehár's eponymous operetta.

The routine onstage at the end of concert five is always different from earlier in the week. All the competitors are invited onto the stage, to receive a crystal goblet from Menna Richards (Director, Â鶹Éç Cymru Wales) and a hearty round of applause from the audience. Everyone was able to be there except Argentinian bass Fernando Javier Radó, who was performing in Berlin.

Then, things return to normal for the announcement of the winner of concert five - this was Italian tenor Giordano Lucà.

Things got even better for Giordano a couple of minutes later, when John Fisher read out his name as one of Sunday's finalists. He will be joined by the winners of all the previous concerts - Eri Nakamura from Japan; Ekaterina Shcherbachenko from Russia; Yuriy Mynenko from Ukraine and Jan Martiník from the Czech Republic.

Concert five will be broadcast on Â鶹Éç Four this evening at 7.30pm.

The Audience Prize gives you the chance to have your say about the competitors. Voting is by phone and is open between 2pm today and 11am on Sunday - see the full details on the Audience Prize. Any of the 25 competitors can receive your vote, whether or not they have reached the final.

There was a palpable air of excitement in St David's Hall last night - as there always is when the home competitor is scheduled to sing - and there was not a spare seat to be had in the house.

Stage presenter Beti George

In her introduction to the evening, stage presenter Beti George, a popular fixture of the competition whom the TV audience never sees (see above), announced that we would hear competitors from Australia, Chile, USA, Czech Republic and... Morriston, a certain section of the audience went wild! Of course, she was referring to Natalya Romaniw's home area, up the road in Swansea.

Each singer presented something quite unusual in the annals of Cardiff Singer repertoire choices. Australia's Katharine Tier sang a moving Wagner song, Im Treibhaus from the Wesendonck Lieder, a first appearance of this piece in the competition. Javier Arrey from Chile brought one of his Song Prize Biblical Songs by Dvořák to the platform, a piece only performed once before in the competition, and then sung by an east European.

Mozart's Idomeneo made a rare appearance on the stage, as Natalya Romaniw from Wales sang Ilia's aria, and Vira Slywotzky from the USA gave us the chance to hear Barber's Do Not Utter A Word from Vanessa.

Czech bass Jan Martiník's programme was pieces were all familiar, but Colline's overcoat aria from La Bohème does not often get an airing in Cardiff Singer.

Of course, there were many competition repertoire staples as well. Katharine Tier sang Dalila's dramatic aria from Samson et Dalila; Natalya Romaniw sang Juliette's Waltz Song; Vira Slywotzky brought us Donna Anna's aria; Jan Martiník sang Mephistopheles' serenade - and of course, a Cardiff Singer 2009 concert would not be complete without Figaro introducing himself nightly in Largo al factotum, and it was Javier Arrey's turn to provide that for the audience last night.

The winner of concert four was Jan Martiník from the Czech Republic.

See a gallery of pictures from concert four.

If the audience were looking forward to another rendition of Largo al factotum tonight, they will be disappointed - there is only one baritone in concert five, Marc Canturri from Andorra, and he has not included it in his programme.

Also taking part tonight are Wade Kernot, a bass from New Zealand; Irish soprano Helen Kearns; the youngest competitor, 21 year old Italian tenor Giordano Lucà and Portuguese soprano Dora Rodrigues.

Once they have sung, the preliminary round of Â鶹Éç Cardiff Singer of the World 2009 will be over. As usual, the winner of the round will be announced, and the eagerly-awaited moment will come as jury chair John Fisher gives the names of Sunday's finalists. In order to ensure that the five strongest competitors overall reach the final, winning your round is not a guarantee that you will appear in the final. It was even the case one year that the competition was won by someone who had not won her round (1993, Inger Dam-Jensen). So everyone in the hall will be waiting with bated breath!

Then, the Audience Prize goes into full swing. Full details on how to vote for your favourite singer will be available on the Audience Prize page.

Monday brought another packed day of music making.

Competitors from Concert Two

Five more singers took part in Recital Three of the Song Prize at the New Theatre in the afternoon, with a further five performing at St David's Hall in concert two in the evening.

Broadcasting got well under way, with the first Â鶹Éç Four programme from concert one being shown in the evening. You can catch up with anything you've missed - click on the Programmes tab at the top of the website to find out what is currently available and what's coming up.

Concert two

Some of the audience may have thought that Dawid Kimberg from South Africa hadn't turned up when conductor Lawrence Foster came onstage alone. But Dawid was starting with Largo al factotum, in which Figaro starts singing offstage. He bounded on in time to introduce himself as Figaro, the barber of Seville.

This aria is the most popular in this competition this year. If everyone who has chosen to sing it gets to the final, there are a total of eight chances to hear it across the week!

Next on was tenor Ji-Min Park from the Republic of Korea. He represented the full range of tenor heroes from Gounod's Romeo to Prince Sou-Chong in Lehár's Das Land des Lächelns.

English mezzo-soprano Anna Stephany was also playing the hero for much of her programme, as two of her three items were 'trouser' roles. She gave us the second Romeo of the evening, in an aria from Bellini's I Capuleti e I Montecchi, and Dopo Notte, sung by the title role in Handel's Ariodante. Interestingly, Anna was wearing a very feminine green dress - but in her Song Prize recital, she may have been the first female Cardiff Singer competitor to wear trousers on stage.

After the interval, Mexican baritone Octavio Moreno sang three arias in three languages - Russian, Italian and French. The latter was Valentin's aria from Gounod's Faust - Gounod is proving to be one of the favourite composers of this competition. There are always many pieces by Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, Mozart and Donizetti throughout the week, but Gounod is normally a little less in evidence. You might call him the 'composer du jour'.

The last competitor to sing was soprano Ekaterina Shcherbachenko from Russia. Her programme included Tatyana's letter song from Eugene Onegin, in which Tatyana's indecision as she writes her love letter is reflected in the length of the aria. But there was still time for her to start her programme with Mozart's Come scoglio from Così fan tutte.

The winner of concert two was Ekaterina Shcherbachenko from Russia.

Recital three

Singers from Portugal, Andorra, Australia, Wales and the Czech Republic were truly singers of the world in recital three of the Song Prize. They sang music from three continents (Europe, America and Australia) and six languages (French, German, Catalan, Spanish, English and Russian).

Master class news

There has been a slight change to the schedule for the master classes, to be held in the New Theatre on Saturday. The session times are the same, but Giacomo Aragall and Kurt Moll have changed places. Here is the updated schedule:

11am - Kurt Moll and Dame Gwyneth Jones
3pm - Giacomo Aragall and Richard Bonynge

Tuesday represents a milestone during Cardiff Singer week. It's the last day of the Song Prize preliminary round, so the appreciative audience which has been attending this event will now have to find something else to do with their afternoons for the rest of the week. They have been able to enjoy Geraint Lewis' pre-performance talks, and then feast themselves on the very varied diet that makes up the Song Prize repertoire.

Competitors from concert three

Now they have to wait for Friday's final, which will feature singers from Croatia, Ukraine, Chile, Czech Republic, and Wales, who will perform in that order.

If the audience is really missing the Song Prize, they can always make a date with the Â鶹Éç Radio 3 coverage, which started on Tuesday and continues through to Friday, at 1pm. Extensive coverage of both competitions can be found in these 90-minute programmes, in the lunchtime concert slot. The Radio 3 blog has attracted some comments already - why not read them and perhaps add your own?

Tuesday also marks the halfway point in the Â鶹Éç Cardiff Singer of the World competition in St David's Hall. Concert three brought us singers from Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine and Israel.

There was some very familiar repertoire - it was Hungarian baritone Csaba Szegedi's turn to sing Figaro's Largo al factotum - this piece is being performed in every concert in the preliminary round except the fifth! Other familiar competition fare included many Mozart favourites - Leporello's Catalogue aria from Don Giovanni (Croatia's Tomislav Lu�ić), Pamina's aria Ach, ich fühl's from The Magic Flute (Izabela Matuła from Poland), Parto, parto from La clemenza di Tito Yuriy Mynenko from the Ukraine and Susanna's Deh vieni, non tardar from Le nozze di Figaro (Claire Meghnagi from Israel).

Claire also brought us one of the most unusual repertoire choices ever - Non monsieur mon mari from Les mamelles de Tirésias by Poulenc. During this entertaining aria, her character, Thérèse, turns into a man, having declared herself fed up with playing second fiddle to her husband.

Read programme notes for this and all the repertoire in concert three.

Ukrainian competitor Yuriy Mynenko had a very good Tuesday. He was declared the winner of concert three, having found out earlier in the day that he had been selected for the Song Prize final.

There is a bit of a Ukrainian club developing in this competition. As well as the Ukrainian competitor himself, there is also the American competitor, Vira Slywotzky who is of Ukrainian descent. Here in Cardiff with her is her sister - who has been helping out with interpreting for Yuriy - and her parents. Plus, Natalya Romaniw from Wales also has Ukrainian descent! Her grandfather used to sing her Ukrainian folksongs when she was a little girl.

Talking of the Welsh competitor - her turn on stage comes tonight. If you can't get to the concert but are in Cardiff and happen to be passing St David's Hall between about 8.30 and 9pm, make sure you glance up at the Â鶹Éç big screen - you'll be able to catch her live performance from the stage!

And finally - in the unlikely event that you are in Cardiff and reading this and don't yet have tickets for tonight, or for any of the remaining concerts, you can get any available ticket for just £5. Call the box office - details are here.

Torrential downpours were not enough to keep the devoted Cardiff Singer audience away from the New Theatre and St David's Hall over the weekend.

Eri Nakamura

The first singers to be heard in the 2009 competition were taking part in Recitals One and Two, on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. See slideshows from the recitals, or read the programme notes before listening to the Â鶹Éç Radio 3 coverage on Tuesday 9 June from 1pm. The radio programmes will also include highlights from the concerts from the main competition.

On Sunday evening, St David's Hall was packed, ready for the start of what promises to be a fantastic week of music making. If you couldn't be there, you can see extended highlights on Â鶹Éç Four tonight at 7.30pm, but here's a taster of what to expect.

The audience was treated to a huge range of operatic music, from baritone character roles including Papageno entertainingly performed by Etienne Dupuis from Canada, to ingénue roles such as Micaëla from Latvian soprano Dana Bramane, to King Philip's sorrow at unrequited love from Argentinian bass Fernando Javier Radó, all of whom sang in the first half of the concert.

After the interval, soprano Emiliya Ivanova from Bulgaria made us believe that she was Juliette in the Waltz Song from Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, and to finish, soprano Eri Nakamura from Japan gave us another, very different Juliette from the end of the same Gounod opera, as she prepares to drink the potion that will make her appear to be dead.

The winner of concert one was Eri Nakamura from Japan.

Most of the competitors have arrived in Cardiff, getting to know the city and each other, having rehearsals and giving interviews for the TV and radio coverage.

On Thursday night, they were welcomed to Cardiff and the competition at a . It was their first chance to meet the army of support staff around the competition - from drivers to dressers, librarians to Â鶹Éç production staff.

On Saturday, the Song Prize starts, with competitors from England, South Africa, Israel, Republic of Korea and USA taking part in the first recital at the New Theatre in Cardiff.

On Sunday, the concert round of Â鶹Éç Cardiff Singer of the World starts, featuring singers from Canada, Latvia, Argentina, Bulgaria and Japan.

Find out the full performance schedule for the week.

To get a flavour of the week to come, don't miss the preview programme on Â鶹Éç Two tomorrow, Saturday 6 June - though if you do miss it, you can catch up with Â鶹Éç iPlayer. The extensive broadcast coverage details can be found on our programmes page.