Streaming company, Kiswe, has announced a partnership with the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition for the third consecutive year. The Met will be leveraging Kiswe’s Studio Switcher technology to help bring its vocal competition to opera fans around the world, livestreaming this years semi-finals on 17 April.

The Laffont competition, formerly known as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, is a nationwide vocal competition founded in 1954 and designed to discover promising young opera singers and assist in the development of their careers. Some of today’s greatest singers got their start in the auditions, including Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Stephanie Blythe, Eric Owens, Lawrence Brownlee and Lisette Oropesa.

Kiswe Studio enables users to produce and distribute premium live streamed and on-demand video experiences quickly, affordably. Its platform will enable the Met to leverage multiple video and graphical assets and seamlessly create a studio-quality production of the competition’s semi-finals.

“We want to find the next great opera singers, but we shouldnt be the only ones hearing these talented artists,” said Melissa Wegner, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition. “Kiswes reliable and powerful technology helps us give much greater exposure to our emerging opera stars, while making opera accessible for audiences in ways that simply werent possible 10 years ago. The partnership with Kiswe underscores the Laffont Competition’s commitment to ongoing innovation as we continue to introduce the future of opera to the world.”