After an illusion-shattering spell in Italy, Edel O'Brien has become a nascent star of the Paris opera scene, writes Lara Marlowe.
Edel O'Brien moves slowly on stage, struggling under the weight of a clay pot filled with roses. "It's so heavy, Madame," the Irish mezzo-soprano sings in French. Hers is a small role as a maid in the comic opera I Quattro Rusteghi, based on a play by Goldoni. But surrounded by sophisticated ladies in frilly costume, O'Brien brings a touch of warmth and simplicity to the tale of male chauvinism in 18th-century Venice.
Since September, when O'Brien joined the Centre de formation lyrique, the training school for the Paris Opera - her friendly enthusiasm has endeared her to staff and fellow students. But it took hard work and a beautiful voice to bring the farmer's daughter (29) from Kilrush, Co Clare, to one of the world's leading opera houses.
When Edel was eight years-old, she won first prize in the Kilrush Féis for her rendition of Teidi Beag Álainn. There were no music classes at the Convent of Mercy school, so she was taken to Limerick every Tuesday for lessons, followed later by a weekly trek to Dublin.
She completed a Master's degree in music at NUI Maynooth, where she wrote her thesis on French opera - little dreaming that seven years later she'd be working at its very heart.
In her thesis, O'Brien asked why French opera reserves more leading roles for mezzo-sopranos, while Italian opera prefers higher voiced sopranos. "The same holds for men," she explains. "Tenors are the heroic, young protagonists. High voices imply virtue and noble qualities. Lower voices are often villains or darker, more complex characters. Verdi's Aïda is a great role for a soprano. Her rival Amneris, the villain, is the mezzo."
O'Brien concluded that taste and the availability of different voices were factors, but the main reason was musical.
"French music is more sensuous, less tangible," she says. "Italian music is like sunshine - bright amd strong and sparkling."
How does a singer define the register of his or her voice? "There are few voices of which you can categorically say, 'That's a soprano'," O'Brien says. "I wasn't sure where my voice lay until I arrived at Maynooth; it was instinct that told me I was a mezzo. You have to be careful of other people's expectations of what a mezzo should sound like. If they want a rich, plummy, dark sound and that for them is a mezzo, I would not fall into that category. I'm a mezzo who has a range on top. For that reason, a lot of people say, 'Well you're really a lazy soprano, aren't you?'"
The real difference between a soprano and a mezzo, O'Brien continues, is not the range but "the colour, the timbre, the warmth of the voice", called the tessatura. "It means the average - where the voice roughly lies. The tessatura of a mezzo is lower; she can hit the high notes but she doesn't like staying up there because of the natural weight of the voice."
While a singer must be prepared to take advice, ultimately O'Brien says it's a personal judgment. "If you feel in your mind that you are such, then you will be such."
Although she admires the great divas, she has never aspired to be like any one in particular, not wanting to fall into the trap of imitation. To avoid getting stuck in "trouser roles" - a fate that sometimes befalls mezzo-sopranos, she's learning Mélisande in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande and Charlotte in Massenet's Werther.
After Maynooth, O'Brien won a scholarship to Trinity College of Music in London. She completed her post-graduate diploma with highest distinction, beating the college's top performers in the vocal, keyboard, strings, baroque and woodwind sections to win its overall Gold Medal in 2000.
The Italian government had invited O'Brien to Milan in 1997-1998, but that experience was disappointing. "If you need to go to Italy, go privately," she says. "Conservatories there are not what we understand them to be in Ireland, France or Britain. They're geared towards secondary schools, and they're chaotic. Opera in Italy has a great reputation, but it is not striving to maintain it."
When O'Brien saw an advertisement for the Paris Opera school, her Italian experience made her hesitate. But the possibility of being paid in euros, not sterling, and direct flights between Beauvais and Shannon made moving to the Continent tempting. She prepared five arias for the first audition last February. Hugues Gall, the director of the Paris Opera, and PålMoe, the casting director, attended the final audition. Of 200 applicants from all over the world, only seven were accepted, including Edel O'Brien.
O'Brien rents a room in the newly renovated Irish College, and is paid €1,700 per month as a trainee singer. The chance to be an understudy for roles on the main stage at the Bastille Opera, and to perform small roles, is a perk that brings extra payment.
Before she even started the course in September, O'Brien was asked to sing the role of a bridesmaid in The Marriage of Figaro, an unusual request of a new trainee. On opening night, the 2,500-seat Opera was packed.
"I stepped out on stage," she recalls. "It's like free-fall. It's so black in front of you - you can feel the space but you can't see it."
She gave up on going home to Kilrush for the holdiays when the Bastille Opera's casting director rang her coaches to say, they needed Edel to be the voice of unborn children in Die Fraue Ohne Schatten. So she will spend Christmas day with a cousin in Bourges, and will perform with the Paris Opera nine times over the next month.
She hopes to be chosen for a second year of training. If she succeeds, she'll be well-placed to join the Paris Opera permanently. In the meantime, she says, it's amazing "to sing on the same stage with famous singers, to know they're behind you as you sing your little duet. You can talk to them backstage, and they're wise and helpful."
In Paris, she has worked with the Welsh stars Della Jones, Robert Tear and Bryn Terfel, and the Italian bass baritone Ildebrando D'Archangelo. One of her coaches, 82-year-old Jeannine Reiss, coached Callas. "She's one of the top French opera coaches. (Placido) Domingo and Anne Sofie von Otter call her up."
The Bastille Opera House, built in 1989, is a source of wonder, with a five-storey high stage, and five floors underground, eight above. "I asked the wardrobe mistress where all the costumes go, and she said, 'Minus four. It's acres and acres'. The sets are disassembled and sent to minus five. The Bastille is one of the few opera houses in the world that can do this."
O'Brien was invited by Bernadette Greevy to sing in the Anna Livia International Opera Festival in 2001. She gave recitals in Farmleigh House, Phoenix Park, last summer, and has performed in Ireland with the Culwick Choral Society, the Dublin County Choir and the Goethe Institute. She is grateful to the Arts Council for helping fund her studies in London, but regrets the absence of a national opera company in Ireland performing a full September-June season. "The talent is there," she says. "The numbers of Irish singers going abroad every year is extraordinary. They're doing well, but you don't hear about it because they're away."
She wishes music were a required subject in Irish schools, as it is on the Continent. She's been impressed by the school children brought to the Paris Opera to watch rehearsals, and believes that if Dublin had an opera house, people would go. "In a materialistic society where people want to make money, music is not seen as an immediate earner," she says.
"But it improves the quality of life. Opera should be as normal as going to the cinema. It's not a high-brow thing; it's entertainment. We need to take the mystery out of it."