TARA’S DREAM COMES TRUE
‘It has been a dream come true to sing at the Metropolitan Opera,’ says Ravensdale opera star Tara Erraught who made her debut at the famous New York venue last week.
Her parents Brianain and Joe and 90 year old Veronica Dunne with whom she studied, fly out to New York to see her in the opening night of Les Contes d’Hoffmann/The Tales of Hoffman.
An excited Tara praised her mother for her support, saying she ‘drove me (and sat through) every singing lesson from the very beginning! From the age of 10!’ And as if by way of award, Brianain got to see her daughter singing on the Met stage on her birthday.
Voicing her appreciation for the Irish contingent who attended the opening night, Tara said ‘as always I felt the full support from home.’
‘From my first lessons with Geraldine McGee, this has been one of the dream houses to sing in, and I am excited to have begun this new relationship with them. Already looking forward to singing in Hansel & Gretel in December!’
Tara’s debut didn’t go unnoticed in music circles.
She was named by Opera Wire online magazine as their ‘artist of the week’ as they previewed the Met’s autumn season. ‘Usually, we also get a new star making a prominent debut, as is the case with mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught, who is coming to the Met as Nicklausse in ‘Les Contes d’Hoffmann.’
She impressed the critics with the New York Classical Review saying: ‘ The Irish mezzo Tara Erraught made a strong company debut as Hoffmann’s companion Nicklausse, largely on the strength of her dramatic performance. Sher’s Nicklausse plays the long game—as the alter ego of Hoffmann’s poetic muse, it is his ultimate wish to see his friend return to his writing desk, and so in this production he is complicit in every one of the villains’ treacheries. That can be a tough line to take without become an outright antagonist, but Erraught’s cheeky Nicklausse has no trouble winning the audience’s affection. Her hard-edged mezzo didn’t sit well in the role’s lyrical material, but she showed lively spark in all of her sing.
The New York Times wrote ‘ Tara Erraught, making her Met debut as Nicklausse and Hoffman’s Muse, seemed most comfortable as her lines rose: billed as a mezzo-soprano her