Winner of Singer of the World 24 year-old Moldovian soprano, Valentina Nafornita

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Soprano Valentina Nafornita from Moldova has triumphed in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2011 competition.

The 24-year-old also won the audience prize, voted for by listeners and TV viewers.

She was among five finalists performing before a jury at St David's Hall in Cardiff on Sunday.

Afterwards, the singer said: "I am so happy, I feel I'm in heaven right now. It is everything to me."

Meeta Raval from England, Olysya Petrova from Russia, Hye Jung Lee from South Korea and Andrei Bondarenko from Ukraine also competed fro the £15,000 main prize.

Baritone Bondarenko was the winner of the international competition's second award, the Song prize, on Friday in which Nafornita also sang.

Dame Joan Sutherland prize

Nafornita performed a programme of composers Donizetti, Dvorak and Gounod to win over the panel of judges.

The judges for the competition included Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Russian-born conductor Alexander Polianichko, Lorenzo Mariani the artistic director at Palermo Opera House in Italy, mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, tenor Dennis O'Neill and baritone Hakan Hagegard.

As well as the main prize, the audience prize of £2,000, was also awarded to Ms Nafornita.

It is chosen by a public telephone vote and has been renamed the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize in honour of the soprano's long association with the competition.

Dame Joan was the patron of the competition until her death last year.

Six hundred opera and concert singers auditioned for a place in the competition.

Twenty singers from around the world took part in the week-long biennial contest last week.

The event was established in 1983 by BBC Cymru Wales. Past winners include Karita Mattila, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Ekaterina Scherbachenko.

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[ididete]

small voice, questionable technique. GODAWFUL FRAUD!

[Contrapunctus1984]

gigalike from Hungary.

[MeganDavisOfficial]

@trainengineer - i had that problem singing arias and I've almost got rid of it.... if you watch my music videos I also realized I did a lot of this in them and have since worked to change it!

[trainengineer2]

@MeganDavisOfficial Sometimes singers naturally do that. It is a mental thing, while in school you can try to fix it, but sometimes it never goes away!!

[MeganDavisOfficial]

why does she move her lips when singing?

[felixcalus]

@illflowmaster is married with Mihail Dogotari, tennor in Italy, she live in Wien, for 1 year contract for Wien StaatOper.

[operaticsnyc]

Not surprised she won, because she's a competent enough singer and she's really beautiful. But her singing in this clip is nothing special. But she has a great presence, which of course is just as important... She's the Nina Dobrev of the opera world

[92NordicQueen]

haha, her face when they annouce the winner! and the guy next to her!

[illflowmaster]

All I want to know is where does she live and is she single?

[cleanmyroomforme]

She's good. she sounds better than the majority of potential singers... she just needs to develop her voice is all! and gains some depth on that C. and hold it girlfriend! They want you to be a diva! toi toi!