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But it was one woman in particular who deeply influenced him: his teacher Ekaterina Yofel. She convinced him that he was a natural high baritone, not a tenor; she also taught him to free his imagination while he was singing, "to make the voice open up like a bouquet of flowers." Accordingly, he blossomed in his first contest. He went on to conquer the International Singing Competition of Toulouse in France in 1988 and capped it with his victory at Cardiff the next year. "I won every contest I entered," he says, without boasting. Soon, in Hvorostovsky's realm, there may be no contest at all.