SONGS OF HOPE AND COMFORT
FROM PREPARING TO SING IN THE NY MET TO SEWING MASKS, TARA ERRAUGHT TELLS MARGARET RODDY HOW LIFE HAS CHANGED
Ravensdale’s opera star Tara Erraught is looking forward to singing in the National Concert Hall on Friday night at 8pm. It will be like no other concert she has given before as she will be performing to an empty auditorium. But she will be heard by audiences around the world as her Songs of Comfort and Hope opens the NCH’s series of concerts which are being livestreamed on Youtube, Facebook, RTE, as well as the NCH’s own social media channels and those of Irish embassies around the world.
As she rehearsed for the concert with pianist Dearbhla Collins last Thursday, an emotional Tara told her fans on social media: ‘ Today was a beautiful day! I sang on a stage for the first time in exactly 10 weeks.’
Having had to come home to Ireland in March instead of performing one of her signature roles in Rossini’s La Cenerentola at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, Tara said: ‘I won’t lie, I have struggled to sing, to listen to music, to do anything productive, since I left New York... but today, today, for the first time in a long time I felt joy from my toes to my grey hair! Like I had air in my lungs again. Breathing in and out music as I am meant to. A rehearsal is much more than “a practice”, it is an opportunity to make music.’
Finishing her message with #ilovemyjob, Tara shows that she’s a totally modern artist, putting paid to the old stereotypes of opera singers being prima donnas.
She’s warm, funny, and passionate about her music. She regularly shares snippets of her life on her social media, from her love for the ‘Oh My God What A Complete Aisling!’ books and her fondness for good coffee to her pride in Irish culture. Above all else, her passion for music shines bright.
It’s a passion which started when she was a young child and which continued as she took singing lesson’s with Geraldine McGee in Dundalk, and later with Veronica Dunne as she studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. She was quickly recognised as having star quality winning 2010 Dublin’s National Concert Hall’s Rising Star Award.
Just as she has made the role of La Cenerentola in Rossini’s adaptation of the fairy-tale Cinderella her own, her career has had a certain fairy-tale quality. She was launched into the spotlight when she stepped into a production of Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi of at very short notice when the mezzo-soprano who was originally cast fell ill. Since then, she has had the kind of career most young singers can only dream of, performing with leading opera companies and orchestras in some of the most famous venues around the world.
Now at the stage when she is cementing that early success, which has earned her glowing reviews and devoted fans, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought what was to have been a busy season to a halt.
‘I have had a really interesting 2019/2020 season so far,’ Tara says. ‘It started with a new production at the Board Gais Energy Theatre in Dublin, of Rossini’s La Cenerentola with Irish National Opera. I was delighted to sing my 30th performance of the role on home soil and so happy to share one of my signature roles with the Irish Public.’
After that she had symphony concerts in Tennessee, followed by Hansel & Gretel at the Bavarian State Opera. The new year started with a recital in London’s Wigmore Hall, a run of il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Vienna State Opera, and Mahler concerts in Minnesota.
Closer to home, Tara ran a weekend of vocal health masterclasses and concert at the chamber music festival in Drogheda, and performed and recorded a new album with the Irish Baroque orchestra.
In mid-February, she returned to New York as rehearsals began at the Metropolitan Opera for La Cenerentola. This would be her third production at the Met since making her debut in 2017 and understandably she was really looking forward to bringing one of her favourite roles to the New York stage.
Although productions were being cancelled in Europe as COVID-19 took a grip in Italy and other countries, Tara was thankful that she was still able to work.
‘ There was no sign of the virus in New York, rehearsals were going really really well,’ she recalls. ‘I was so excited to get closer to opening night, Also being in New York coming up to St Patrick’s Day was very special. The opera company had even decorated the backstage area in honour of St. Patrick.’
‘ We had a wonderful dress rehearsal, and then two days break before opening night, on March 12.’
Tara’s sister Aoife, who works for the Department of Foreign Affairs, was in New York at the time working for the U.N, and the two sisters caught the opening night of the Riverdance 25th anniversary tour in Radio City Music Hall on March 10.
Tara was excitedly waiting for the opening of La Centerentola and her parents Joe and Brianain had arrived in New York for the opening.
‘On the morning of the show, we made my toi toi toi (good luck) gifts, and prepared as I always would for the show,’ she says. ‘At around 12.50pm I got a call from the theatre (they always call on show days to make sure you are well) and they informed me they were closing the theatre with immediate effect, cancelling all current shows, and I was free to leave the country as quickly as possible.’ ‘ To say I got a shock is an understatement,’ she recalls. ‘It was an out of body experience’, she continues, as her dreams of singing her favourite role on the Met’s famous stage was snatched away from her. She had been looking forward to bringing her Cinderella to New York since signing the contract five years previously.
‘But thank God my parents were there. My mother quickly got us all booked on a flight home the next day, we packed up my apartment, cleaned up the lose ends and left.’
‘ The airport was also so strange,’ she says. ‘A flight that should have been full to the brim of New York and New Jersey marching bands coming to Ireland for the St Patrick’s Day parades -but all the seats were empty.’
She wasn’t the only Irish performer going home with a broken heart. ‘Many of the dancers from Riverdance were also on the same flight home as us, with their dreams in their pockets. Months and months of hard work and practice that now would not be seen.’
While it took her a few days to get over the bitter disappointment, she has settled back into life in Ravensdale.
‘I am so grateful to live in the country,’ she says. ‘Most of my season I spend in apartments all around the world. But to be able to spend lockdown in Ravensdale where the nature is incredibly beautiful, and to see Spring in front of your eyes, with the lambing season starting after we came home, was a wonderfully positive sign from Mother Nature that things will get better.’
While the rest of her family are also at home, Tara has been keeping busy while they are working during the day.
‘I have done a whole array of things... started laying a patio (with a lot of help!), decided to demolish our deck, a lot of grass cutting and anything outside, as well a walking in the forest close to our home.’
As her mother is a trained chef and head of the Department of Hospitality Studies at DkIT, it’s not surprising to learn that they have been doing a lot of cooking.
‘ We have a theme per week,’ reveals Tara. ‘It’s French week this week. So that’s great. We have had some amazing meals over the lockdown, and I am so lucky to live in a house where everyone enjoyed cooking. ‘
Tara also joined the band of volunteers sewing masks for frontline workers as part of the Masks for Louth group. ‘My grandmother Mary Dooley, my two aunties Fiona Dooley and Aileen Mulligan and myself have been
turning out over 100 masks a week.’
While she joined her long time collaborator Angela Brower in posting songs on Instagram when she first returned home, she then took a break from singing.
‘As a vocal athlete, the muscles needed and deserved a rest. I haven’t had this much downtime ever. I slowly started to warm up and build up stamina again ahead of the recital at the NCH next week.’
She notes that while there are lots of ‘ living room’ concerts at the moment, she hasn’t taken part as ‘none of us have the technology nor the experience to make these recordings on the high level our public are used to.’
Tara is thrilled to have been invited to take part in this new series by the NCH to bring music into people’s homes during lockdown.
‘ The NCH approached me and asked would I sing to an empty hall and I jumped at the opportunity! Simply because it’s my home away from home. I know the hall, the acoustics and the public.’
While it will be strange to sing to an empty concert hall, she is grateful for the opportunity to perform on stage.
‘It’s as close as we can get at the moment, and I am willing to learn how it goes and to bring everything I can to the people at home. I am grateful that the NCH trust me to launch the series for them.’
After that concert, she doesn’t know when she will sing on stage again. ‘I am meant to return to the Met for the Tales of Hoffmann in September, but that is already looking unlikely. I am holding onto hope though that the 2020/2021 season is salvageable.’
Tara’s work brings her around the world and she says she is lucky to get the opportunity to travel as much as she does. ‘I like to explore the cities once the shows are in performances.’
But she is always looking forward to the next project and loves finding new repertoire and enjoys practicing.
‘I am heavily involved with Irish National Opera and am passionate about what I can bring home to Ireland from the work I do abroad. So I also research what is happening industry wide.’
Although she is missing her fellow singers and friends, she is philosophical about it as they are all in the same position.
She can look back on some of her favourite memories, knowing that the time will come when she can make new memories.
‘I shall never forget the final notes of La Cenerentola with INO this past autumn on the opening night. I stood alone, in front of the curtain, for one split second there was silence and then there was a rapturous reception that I wasn’t expecting. It felt like it came from deep in the soul of each audience member.’
Singing her first Cenerentola at the Bayerische staatsoper in Munich in the very famous Ponnell production was another special moment for her as was making her debut at both Carnegie Hall and Metropolitan Opera. As regulars at St Joseph’s Redemptortist Church know, Tara is all too happy to sing with the choir for special occasions, and she says that singing O Holy Night at midnight mass in St.Patricks Cathedral in New York on Christmas Eve is ‘a massive highlight too’.
Right now, she says she can’t wait to share an evening of music with audiences around the world on Friday at 8pm. ‘I will give it all I have.’ she promises.