Opera gets the X Factor

The Veronica Dunne Singing Competition has a first prize of €10,000 – but that might be just the beginning for the winner

PUT A WANNABE pop star in front of a jury, and you get The X Factor. Do the same with a wannabe opera singer, and you get something along the lines of the Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition. At first glance, they don't appear to have much in common. For one thing, anyone who enters an operatic singing competition can actually sing. For another, juries are discreet enough to keep the details of their deliberations to themselves – so there are no public savagings by Simon Cowell look-alikes. But for a young classical singer attempting to make a career in the cut-throat world of international opera, doing well in a competition can provide a whoosh up the ladder every bit as spectacular as the one which has made the Jedward twins into a household name in Ireland in recent months.

Whoever wins this year's Veronica Dunne competition will pocket a first prize of €10,000, as well as engagements with RTÉ and Opera Ireland. But if the diaries of the Irish singers and former winners Orla Boylan and Tara Erraught are anything to go by, that's just the start of a roller-coaster ride which – provided you manage to hang on tight – might well turn the world into your operatic oyster. By the time January gets into its stride, Boylan will have been in Australia for two weeks, rehearsing her role at Perth Festival. Erraught will be back at work at Munich State Opera where, after "one more Traviataand a Madame Butterfly", she'll be singing the lead in Rossini's La Cenerentolain March.

“Fifteen years – God, it’s like yesterday,” says Boylan, who won the first Veronica Dunne competition in 1995. “At the time I was a student of Mary Brennan’s. She mentioned the competition and, as always, I was last-minute this, last-minute that. I think I went down on the bicycle with the entry form to get it in on time. It was just something I entered because my teacher told me to, and it kind of went on from there. I never dreamed that I would win it, so every round that I got through it all seemed like a big joke. But then suddenly you find yourself on stage with the orchestra – and I’d never been with an orchestra, never been on telly, radio, nothing.”

Erraught, a student of Veronica Dunne's, took second prize in the competition in 2007. "On the night of the semi-final I remember thinking, 'I can't believe I've got this far'," she says. "And when they called out the names of the people who'd got through to the final, I didn't know what I was going to do – I was in such a panic because I hadn't really learned the arias." Geordie Joe, take note: in order to enter this particular competition you need to submit a list of 16 differentarias in advance – and you can't change your mind about what you're going to sing as you progress through the rounds.

What does it feel like to sing in a competition – is it different to a recital, or an opera? "Well, I think it can't feel that different," says Boylan. "It all has to be a performance. I think if you get caught up on juries, and who you're singing for – or who you're against, as a competitor – that has to be a disadvantage. I was so innocent, at the time. For me it was just getting out there and singing. I didn't really know my competitors. I didn't know the jury members. Apart from Joan Sutherland. Everybody knows Joan Sutherland. So for me it was – well, I can't say it was a laugh, but it was such fun; and such a surprise to find myself on stage, and enjoying it." There's another thing in common with The X Factor, then – finding out, sometimes the hard way, whether you can cut it as a live performer.

As a rule, however, jury feedback in an opera competition is a pretty sedate affair. "You don't hear that, really. It's all very 'behind closed doors'. They just come back with their results," she says. Boylan did, though, have one "Simon Cowell-esque" moment – in a good way. It came just after she had won the competition. She was standing on the stage next to the legendary Australian singer Joan Sutherland. "I had just done one of the Four Last Songsby Richard Strauss, and she said to me, 'Oh, marvellous breath control – how do you manage it?' That was the one comment that I will always remember. For her to say that to someone who was 22 or 23 was something that you would never forget."

Since she went to work in Munich 18 months ago, Erraught has been made to do audition after audition as part of her training at the Opera Studio there. “You learn how to ignore a jury,” she says. “But what I’ve also learned – and they’re very open about this – is that they’ll do their very best to put you off. There might be eight people at your average audition, or on a jury, and they’re gonna fiddle with their papers. One of them won’t look at you at all. Somebody else will stare at you.” These strategies are often agreed in advance between jury members. “It’s to see if you can hold steady – and it’s really difficult,” she says.

It’s hard to imagine the 12-person panel of judges at this year’s Veronica Dunne competition, which includes artistic director of Opera Ireland Dieter Kaegi, baritone Sergei Leiferkus, soprano Ileana Cotrubas, conductor Laurent Wagner, and the director of artistic administration at Glyndebourne, Steven Naylor, as well as the composer and chairwoman, Jane Carty, stooping to such shenanigans. If anything, jurors tend to tempt singers – at least, the best singers – with offers of work.

“One member of the jury was from Germany, and he was offering me a place in his opera house – which, thank goodness, I didn’t take up because I was far too inexperienced. I hadn’t a clue,” says Boylan. “But it’s funny how names travel in this business. A year later somebody called me anonymously about another competition in Milan – and bought me a plane ticket. To this day I still don’t know who that person was.” She won the competition, and on her way home she got a phone call from an agency in London – “And suddenly I’m a professional opera singer with an agent.”

For Tara Erraught, the Veronica Dunne prize led to her singing at the Belvedere Competition in Vienna, where she got to the final. “And then I got home and this man rang the house. And my mam thought it was joke, because he said, ‘I’m Florian from the Bayerische Staatsoper’. And she said, ‘Ha, ha; pull the other one’. He tells me this story all the time. It’s quite embarrassing.” Erraught auditioned and was accepted at the Munich opera studio, where she quickly found herself hobnobbing with the sort of people she had been listening to on CD a few months before. “The very first production I did was with Angela Gheorghiu – and I was, like, 200 per cent starstruck.”

Both Boylan and Erraught pay special tribute to the Feis Ceoil which, they say, offers Irish singers invaluable experience in competitions from a young age. Winning a big singing prize is not, however, an automatic ticket to stardom. To get established takes lots of hard work, experience and – above all – time. Bryn Terfel is a household name in the opera world – but then, he was a winner at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition way back in 1989. It will take a while before the name of the most recent winner, Ekaterina Shcherbachenko, rolls off the tongue as easily. Brian Asawa, José Cura and Bruce Fowler are just some of the international stars who came through Placido Domingo’s Operalia prize and its subsequent tutoring and engagements – but they were prizewinners in 1994.

In the end, every singer’s learning curve is unique to that person. Tara Erraught spent almost five years working as an usher at the National Concert Hall – which, in retrospect, was like a priceless seminar in professional know-how. “I learned a lot about what music audiences like and what they don’t like,” she says. “But the most important thing I learned was watching other performers coming on to that stage. Things that looked good, or didn’t look good. Things that worked, things that didn’t.” One top soloist showed off a lot more than she bargained for. “She came on in the most revealing dress ever. A backless dress and, obviously, a bra-less dress. It was one hundred per cent see-through – now, I’m sure she couldn’t tell, because it was a fabulous colour. But I noticed straight away that some of the audience were horrified.” Fiddling with hair is another no-no, as is the way an artist makes an entrance. “Some of the biggest stars walk on sheepishly, or take little tiny steps.”

It's a fair bet that Erraught won't do any of the above when she takes to the stage at Glyndebourne later this year. Nor will the famously elegant Boylan, who has made quite a name for herself as an accomplished interpreter of Strauss – so much so that she will make her debut as Aufseherin in Elektraat this year's Salzburg Festival. But both Boylan and Erraught are delighted to be coming home to sing in Ireland this year – a rare treat which may get rarer as times get tougher and funds get tighter. Erraught will sing Haydn and Mahler at the National Concert Hall on March 1st, while Boylan will sing Strauss's Four Last Songswith the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra at the NCH on March 5th.

Meanwhile, 72 young hopefuls from 25 countries – including China, Iceland, Thailand and South Africa – will compete in the Veronica Dunne competition this month. Does Erraught have any advice for them? “To stay calm is really the best thing,” she says. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

The Veronica Dunne International Singing competition begins on Jan 20. The preliminary rounds are at the Kevin Barry Room, National Concert Hall, Dublin, on Jan 20, 21 and 22 (tickets €5). The semi-final is on Sun, Jan 24 (tickets €5). The final is on Tues, Jan 26 at 8pm (tickets €25, €20, €12; season ticket €30 for all rounds, including the final)