Emerging? Emerged?

It's that time of year again: the second winner of the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Emerging Stars Popularity Competition has been announced: it's Arturo Chacón-Cruz, who sang an okay, not great Rodolfo in the June run of La Bohème.

And once again, why, exactly, is Chacón-Cruz an emerging artist? He has previously sung only the Duke of Mantua at SFO, and that was five years ago, but Operabase shows a tenor who emerged a long time ago: He has been singing leading roles at important European and US opera houses since 2006, that is, eleven years.

I'm not a fan of contests decided by audience voting, but this competition could be made more credible by placing time limits on debuts in major roles or something like that.