THE WORLD OF opera singing can seem like a curious one to many of us. Sure, we know about Luciana Pavarotti, Maria Callas and Andrea Bocelli, but is it a job that’s easy to do – and can you be an Irish opera singer?
The answer is – naturally – yes. Centuries on from when it first emerged in Italy in the late 1500s, opera singing is a viable career choice. It’s also one that, as we learned on a trip to the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM), is adored by those who choose it (even if it does mean that nights out take a back seat).
At RIAM, they know their libretto from their aria, and many students who’ve passed through its doors (who can study all forms of classical music) have gone on to have glittering international careers.
Where it all happens
Tucked away in a grand building on Dublin city centre’s Westland Row, RIAM was founded in 1848 to provide the type of musical education that simply wasn’t available at the time.
Today, it offers a range of courses for adults and children, takes in international students and also offers private tuition in everything from violin to flute.
Deborah Kelleher, RIAM’s director, describes the academy as “unique in Ireland – it serves a diversity of musicians that is unmatched in any other institution”.
She sees the structure of the academy as being like a pyramid – at the base are the 42,000 from around Ireland children who take exams at the academy, plus their 7,000 music teachers; above them are the 1000 students who attend classes on Westland Row.
Kelleher describes them as “normal kids – they might run in the door with football boots over one shoulder and a violin over the other”.
“But they are there to learn their music and they do have to take it seriously because you do have to audition to get in. We have very few places and a lot of demand,” said Kelleher. ”It means that when you do get in you are going to be very serious about your music – whether you go on to have a career or not.”
At the top of this pyramid are the 150 bachelor, masters and doctorate students, who Kelleher describes as the “musical Olympians” of RIAM, who are “representing Ireland with distinction on the world stage”.
“But all of those, from the musical Olympians down to the bottom, are equal valued members of the community,” said Kelleher.
Children can start at RIAM before the age of six, where they can attend pre-instrumental lessons. That’s learning about music without learning any instrument, but by the time they are six or seven, they can move on to the practical side of things.
Kelleher credited music education with helping children’s cognitive, social, intelligence and creative powers. “It’s for all kids,” she asserted.
RIAM has also teamed up with prestigious music schools like Juilliard, the Liszt Academy and Guild Hall to work on a number of projects over the years.
“For us it is educationally important that we test our students and test ourselves against the best but also it is reputationally important in Ireland,” said Kelleher of working with such internationally-renowned schools.
Kelleher said that Irish musicians always put on a very strong showing on the international stage.
“As a nation that tells a story naturally there is something utterly captivating when an Irish person sings. And this isn’t wishful thinking on my part – when our students go on to further studies they are top of the class in the Guild Hall or top of the class in the Juilliard.”
The school decided to put a particular focus on its vocal performances over the past five years, which has led to very strong results.
Opera singer Kathleen Tynan was one of the people behind the improvement of the opera studies.
“We are attracting singers from elsewhere to come study here,” she said. “One of the rare things is we offer students at undergraduate level the opportunity to perform in fully staged operas, which is quite unusual.”
Future plans also include a major redevelopment of the academy building, including the recital hall and opera studio, and a renewed focus on the academy’s orchestral studies.
But what’s it like to be an opera singer? We asked Andrew Gavin, Sarah Brady, and Peter Manning.
Gavin and Manning are graduates of the academy and Brady is continuing her studies on the RIAM masters’ programme. All three singers have performed principal roles in the school’s opera and have represented it internationally in such venues as The Juilliard School and the Wigmore Hall.
Here’s what they told us about being an opera singer:
You don’t have that many nights out
“It’s always on your mind, and everything you do affects singing – your diet, what you do, you can’t go out that much,” said Brady, who also emphasised how much she adores singing. For the students, any hardship is worth it.
Added Manning: “They had a ball here two days ago and we couldn’t go because if you go to something like that you’re out talking to people or there are people smoking around you and things like that.
Suddenly your voice isn’t 100% for three or four days and that’s game over really.
“I think the older you get the more sensible you get as a singer,” said Brady, who pointed out that students do more shows as they get older, so there’s more of a need for protecting their voice.
You can’t really practice for long
Said Gavin: “The difference between being a singer or an instrumentalist, you can only really practice for – I would say max an hour, hour and a half a day before you’re getting diminishing returns in terms of the voices being adversely affected ‘cos you’re tiring it out and over using it. Whereas violinists can practice for four or five hours at a time, without needing that much of break.”
The voice is in you so you can’t just put it in a case and put it away. It’s very physical and it’s psychological, singing and this kind of work, it does take over.
“If you take a train, or public transport you’re thinking of the person who’s less likely to sneeze who you’re going to sit beside,” added Gavin.
You have to be able to act
Brady explained that being an opera singer isn’t just about, well, singing: “You have to be able to sing well, you have to be able to move well, you have to be able to dance maybe in some shows and you have to be able to act – that’s becoming increasingly important, especially now that opera is changing, it’s not becoming this big elitist thing anymore, which is great.”
It’s not all glam
“It’s a huge amount of work – it’s a huge amount of commitment, every minute thinking about it, it’s always burning away, “said Manning.
Brady agrees: “It’s not like a nine to five job where you wake up in the morning, have your breakfast, do your job and then you can turn off your computer at five o’clock. For a singer or musician, it’s always ticking in your brain, you’re thinking about something all the time, for me anyway.”
Singing can get really emotional
“A lot of the stuff we do is really very emotional and it is a skill in itself to be able to channel that without being overcome with that,” said Gavin.
The subject matter is so at the core of what is to be alive, to be a human being, to deal with grief, it’s really just cutting to the very core of what makes us who we are. So it’s a real challenge and a skill to channel that and make an audience member feel that and not be overcome by that yourself.
When Brady and Manning were rehearsing for The Magic Flute, Brady “probably cried two or three times in rehearsals”.
Myself and Peter had scenes in The Magic Flute where we were about to take our own lives and it’s very hard to draw the line between: ‘I need to portray this and not get really upset by it, and sing really hard music at the same time’.
Opera isn’t elitist
Opera isn’t elitist, said Brady: “I think the directors nowadays are trying to sort of update things so that it relates to now.”
“There are still period productions done but I think it is very important that we are doing these kind of things that relate to people nowadays.”
The students named Wide Open Opera and Opera Briefs (which is RIAM’s partnership with the Lir Academy) as helping to change the face of opera in Ireland.
Said Gavin: “You go and see these things and see there is actually a huge amount of fun to be had, and it’s not just old people sitting there in their fur coats.”
Opera isn’t the staid performance some people might think it is, echoed Brady: “It’s not just people standing on stage singing anymore, people are moving, people are dancing, the sets can be so intricate. And I think it’s becoming very visually important now, opera, like musical plays, I think it’s becoming increasingly like that.”
RIAM will hold a series of free concerts around the country in November, and will present the opera Vampirella in March 2017.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say