Three ladies from a Minnesota stage are heading to New York. The women in question are the first-place winners of the Metropolitan Opera National Council’s Upper Midwest Region auditions – the second stage in a four-tier competition whose third and fourth rounds will play out on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera itself.

The winners of the regional competition stage are: soprano Jessica Faselt, contralto Lauren Decker, and mezzo-soprano Megan Grey. This diverse selection of voices – spanning from the high soprano register down to the earthy contralto notes below the staff – means that there will be no direct overlap in their musical repertoire as the three women head to New York City for the Semi-Finals.

The Upper Midwest Region auditions and the Minnesota District auditions that preceded them were both held in the Great Hall of Bethel University, a superior acoustic for voices of this size and stature.