Yi Li (from left) and Ao Li with the other three winners of the 2014 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Provided to China Daily

When Ao Li saw Manhattan's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts - the home of the Metropolitan Opera House - for the first time, he cried.

French classics in 'Paris of the Orient'

Showing their brass

The opera house "is like a dream for me", recalls Li, a bass baritone from Dezhou, Shandong province, who emerged as a winner in the prestigious Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Grand Finals Concert. "The first time I saw the fountain, I was crying, because I watched a lot of productions on DVD and they all have the fountain (in the opening).

"It felt like a dream came true," the San Francisco resident says in an interview on New York classical music station WQXR. "The police came to me, and asked: 'Sir, you need help?' I was just too emotional."

Li was one of five young singers named winners in the final round of what is widely considered the country's most prestigious vocal competition. He sang Leporello's Catalog Aria from Mozart's Don Giovanni and the title character's cavatina from Rachmaninoff's Aleko. A co-winner was another young Chinese artist, Yi Li, a 29-year-old tenor and fellow Shandong province native from Jinan, who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. Li, meanwhile, performed De'miei bollenti spiriti from Verdi's La Traviata and Pourquoi me revellier from Massenet's Werther.

Each of the five winners, who performed two arias onstage at the Met for the first time with conductor Marco Armiliato and the Met's orchestra, received a $15,000 cash prize. The auditions, now in their 61st season, have boosted the careers of singers like Renee Fleming, Susan Graham and Deborah Voigt.

Li tells the radio station that he started out as a clarinetist but switched to vocals for a greater challenge. "I felt it was so boring when I was sitting in the orchestra, I wanted more to be the center of the stage, in front of the conductor," he says.