Choosing a winner from among the finalists of a week-long, international music competition is like picking one item almost at random from a bowl of mixed fruit.

With few exceptions, the final stages of the biennial BBC Cardiff Singer of the World has always been about the virtual impossibility of comparing like with like.

This year, a peach was chosen in the shape of 24-year-old Moldovan soprano Valentina Nafornita, and the metaphor was apt - she had a ripe, mouth-watering voice, she oozed sweetness and light and her quality never faded.

She got to the finals even though she didn't win her preliminary round. She was one of the five finalists with the highest marks, the other four being winners of their heats.

In a neat twist, she was presented first with the Audience Prize, voted for by BBC listeners and viewers and awarded this time in memory of competition patron Dame Joan Sutherland, who died last year.

This prize is often the audience's way of taking issue with the judges, who this time included American soprano Marilyn Horne and Welsh tenor Dennis O'Neill, but no sooner had she walked off stage with it than she was announced as the overall winner too, as judges and audience proved to be of one mind.

The two who ran her close were Ukrainian baritone Andrei Bondarenko, the winner of her round, and Russian mezzo Olesya Petrova, with English soprano Meeta Raval and South Korean soprano Hye Jung Lee not far behind.