New York ? Nine rising young opera singers who survived a competition as daunting as “American Idol” got their first chance Sunday to perform on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House accompanied by full orchestra.

If history is any guide, some of them will be back soon.

The nine were the best among more than 1,500 would-be stars who entered the Met National Council’s 51st annual auditions. Those who made it through district-level competitions went on to regional auditions, and 22 semifinalists were then invited to New York, where they sang to piano accompaniment last week.

On Sunday, each of the nine finalists had a chance to sing two arias, and when they were through, emcee Susan Graham — a celebrated mezzo-soprano who herself once competed in the auditions — announced the four winners chosen by a panel of judges:

• Soprano Susanna Phillips, from Huntsville, Ala.;
• Soprano Lisette Oropesa from Baton Rouge, La.;
• Tenor Rodell Aure Rosel, a native of the Philippines who attended UCLA;
• Bass Jordan Bisch from Vancouver, Wash.


Opera singers, from left, Lisette Oropesa, Rodell Aure Rosel, Susanna Phillips and Jordan Bisch hold hands after they were declared the winners of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Grand Finals Concert on Sunday in New York.

The rules state that contestants must be between the ages of 20 and 30 when they enter, and Rosel just made it under the wire, having turned 29 last year. The others are all in their early 20s.

Rosel also was the most unusual of the contestants, a diminutive figure who bills himself as a “character tenor” and uses his compact body expertly to magnify the effect of his robust singing. In his first selection, “Jour et nuit” from Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann,” he played the part of Frantz, a deaf and doddering servant, complete with well-timed pratfalls. His second choice was the sinister Worm Aria from Corigliano’s “The Ghosts of Versailles,” which had its world premiere at the Met.

Bisch has a bass voice of only modest size, but it goes remarkably deep and he uses it with focus and intelligence. He threw himself heartily into the comic villain Osmin’s aria, “O wie will ich triumphieren” from Mozart’s “Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail,” and then changed mood radically for the gloomy cavatina “Ves’ tabor spit” from Rachmaninoff’s “Aleko.”

The two sopranos displayed voices of very different character. Phillips has a generous lyric soprano that reveled in “Je veux vivre,” the waltz song from Gounod’s “Romeo et Juliette,” drawing explosive applause from the audience. She followed with a moving rendition, complete with floated high notes, of Pamina’s “Ach, ich fuehls,” from Mozart’s “Die Zauberfloete.” Oropesa’s voice is small but pure, and she etched a lovely line in “Ruhe sanft” from Mozart’s “Zaide.” She followed with a perky and polished performance of Rosina’s “Una voce poco fa” from Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia.”