Sandra Oman: Singing at Opera in the Open.
If you attend all five of the Opera in the Open concerts, which are being held each Thursday this month at the Civic Offices amphitheatre on Wood Quay, Dublin 8, you will soon recognise one of the sopranos. Sandra Oman is performing in every opera in the lunchtime series: Madama Butterfly, The Merry Widow, La Clemenza di Tito, Carmen and Tosca. In some ways it's a homecoming: Oman started her working life at the Civic Offices, as a clerical officer.
"I was studying music at night at the College of Music on Chatham Street, and then I started to go abroad for lessons. Over time I started to get offered more and more professional engagements, and in the end I had to make a choice, so in 2000 I gave up the day job and became an opera singer full time."
Since then she has performed in opera and concert in Ireland, England and the US, most recently as Despina in Opera Ireland's Così Fan Tutte at the RDS.
Although outdoor lunchtime performances are a relaxed affair for the audience, they involve the mammoth task of learning five roles for the cast. "There is a fair amount of work involved, all right," says Oman. "We spend about a month preparing for the performances. I have done some of the roles before, for example Micaela in Carmen, which I did at the National Concert Hall in February, so it is a case of brushing up on it. But it is challenging where you are learning a role from scratch."
Now in its eighth year, Opera in the Open aims to make opera more accessible and, in the process, attractive to a wider audience. "What the audience gets is a reduced version of the opera, about an hour long, so it is almost like buying a greatest-hits version."
For Oman it is an opportunity to broaden her repertoire. "I would never get to perform Madama Butterfly or Tosca on a full opera stage, because they are for a different voice type to mine. But here we are performing isolated duets and arias, just accompanied by piano. It's fun for me. It's not like I take it less seriously than other operas, but it is not a high-pressure or high- powered performance, so I get to enjoy it."
Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow takes place at 1pm next Thursday at the Amphitheatre, Civic Offices, Wood Quay, Dublin 8. See www.dublincity.ie