I just had a very excited Ailyn Perez on the telephone informing me that she is this year’s winner of the Richard Tucker Award ! This $30,000 prize is the operatic equivalent of winning the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize and an Academy Award all rolled into one ! Her husband, Stephen Costello, won the Tucker Award in 2009, so they are the first married couple to both receive this prestigious prize. Ailyn made her Dallas Opera debut last season as “Zerlina” in Don Giovanni, and is already engaged for her return in a future season.
