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Each year OperaOnline.us selects some of the best performances and best of everything else we have seen in opera in the preceding season. We rate what we have seen not on where we viewed it but rather on how each opera was presented. In that way, each company is treated with equal standing, every performance and production has a chance to be measured against all other performances and productions so that when an award is given it is given based on the high standards set not by us, but by the quality of everything that has been seen that year.
For years, singers and opera companies have taken pride in being nominated and winning the "Best Of" from OperaOnline.us. This year, as in others, we salute all the performers, musicians and behind-the-scene production staff and crews that have labored to make opera so pleasurable. By these awards we hope to acknowledge those on and behind the stage and say "thank you" for a job well done.