Opera Scholars Australia co-director Margot Cory-Wall said finalists Emilia Bertolini, Chloe Harris and Thomas Harvey would be judged by an expert panel, but Opera In The Alps audience members were also able to vote for their favourite.

“Not surprisingly they’re very discerning because in most years their vote is very, very similar to the adjudicators’,” Mrs Cory-Wall said.

The 23rd annual Opera In The Alps at Beechworth golf course will feature conductor Guy Noble, tenor trio Nicholas Jones, Mark Vincent and Brenton Spiteri, the Opera Scholars, a 65-voice choir and full orchestra.

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Mrs Cory-Wall said the orchestra would open with the William Tell Overture while the program also included choruses from Verdi operas Don Carlos and La Traviata and Don’t Cry For Me Argentina from the musical Evita.

“I think the audience will be very happy with what we’re doing,” she said on Friday.

“Guy Noble of course is very popular, our conductor, and he is repeating his own ditty, usually skewed politically and it’s always very funny.

“We have no idea what it is at this stage, he just presents it at final rehearsal and we sing along.”