Marius Brenciu was the fifth contestant from Romania. By winning in 2001 he has achieved many firsts - the first tenor to win, the first Romanian to even reach the final, and the first singer to win both the main and Song prizes.

Marius made his debut in 1997 as Don Ottavio in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Bucharest Opera and has since performed a number of roles there, at the Sofia Opera and in Budapest. In 2001 he sings Fenton in Verdi's Falstaff in Caen and takes part in performances of the Verdi Requiem in Bucharest and Lyublyana.

Marius took both a music degree and then a masters degree in Lied and Oratorio. He won first prize and two special prizes at the 2001 Young Concert Artists Competition in New York and second prize and the opera prize in the 1999 Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels.

Marius is interested in literature, foreign languages, history and surfing the net.

Preliminary repertoire

• Meyerbeer - L'Africaine: Pays merveilleux, jardin fortuné... ô paradis
• Schumann - Liederkreis Op 39: In der Fremde (no 1), Intermezzo (no 2), Waldesgespräch (no 3)
• Donizetti - L'elisir d'amore: Una furtiva lagrima
• Verdi - Macbeth: O figli, o figli miei... A la paterna mano

Final repertoire

• Ponchielli - La Gioconda: Cielo e mar!
• R Strauss - Songs op10 no3: Die Nacht
• Enescu - 7 Chansons de Clément Marot op15 no6: Changeons propos, c'est trop chanté d'amours
• Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin: Lensky's aria