Youth gets a shot at last

Outside in the lobby, IYO co-founder Colette McGahon explains why she and her colleagues Paul McNamara and Suzanne Murphy — all of them professional or former professional opera singers — decided to found the organisation.

“I was out of the country for about 15 years, and I was kind of shocked when I came back to find that things hadn’t moved on much,” she says. “When I went on to the College of Music and worked with [famed Irish singer and teacher] Veronica Dunne, there was no such thing as a performance­ degree, you just did what she told you, and you got to where you wanted to go.

“But now, while they all have performance degrees and ­master’s, they still don’t have anything beyond that. It has to be the only art form where you just can’t earn a living in your own country.”

Creating a support network for younger opera singers — the “youth” isn’t necessarily a reference to teenage singers, but rather those in their late twenties and early thirties whose voices have yet to come to maturity in opera terms — is one of the IYO’s main remits.

So is convincing younger audiences that opera is neither “stuffy” nor “elitist”. One of the schemes includes the cinema deal, in which under-28s are offered tickets for €9, the price of an average cinema ticket.

“It’s strange, that whole concept. We’ve listened to it so many times,” says McGahon. “‘ Opera’s elitist, it’s expensive, you have to dress in a certain way.’ And then you look at how much it costs for people to go to see One Direction, and buy all the gear, and stay overnight. Sure, you’d go to the opera

20 times for the cost of doing that. Do they go in their

dirty jeans from the garden to see One Direction? No they don’t, they dress up. Opera is what it is, and when people try to go into that area of audience development, it doesn’t mean that you have to dumb down the product. This is opera, and it should be ­celebrated.”

The company received funding from the Arts Council last year and immediately put the wheels in motion for its debut ­production, auditioning a large number of Irish and Irish-based singers for roles in the small ensemble cast. The Rape of Lucretia was chosen­ for the first performance because it is suitable for younger voices and has a relatively ­intimate ­orchestral set-up. “Ireland­ does tend to trot out a certain amount of opera that’s pared down for smaller orchestral forces, but we don’t want to go down that road,” McGahon says. “We want our singers to have the opportunity to do it exactly the way they’d do it in a professional house, with professional directors, conductors, designers. That includes the size of the orchestra. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever do La Boheme or La Traviata because singers need to be more mature for those roles.

“We’ll be selling the concept of people coming to see singers who are about to go on and have fantastic careers, because once they go, it’s awfully hard to get them back. Unfortunately, we’re still in a situation where we’re training for export. We’re still trying to stem that tide.”

The cast of The Rape of Lucretia has already been given an opportunity that many singers of their age have yet to enjoy. The opera is directed by the experienced Michael Barker-Caven and conducted by Stephen ­Barlow, co-founder of Opera 80, now known as English Touring Opera. Both men have Irish connections­ — Barker-Caven frequently works here and is artistic director of Cork’s ­Everyman Palace Theatre, while Barlow held the same role with Opera Northern Ireland from 1996 to 1999. Yet neither balked at the idea of working with an untested company and a young cast.

“In the main, that was the whole point,” says Barlow. “I love that process. I love that bit of teaching, as well as making music and making opera. The extraordinary reward is that you get a concentration and a focus and an integrity that you sometimes don’t get with [older] ­professionals. These people bring tears to my eyes often, simply because of their wholehearted, 100% commitment.”

It was an easy decision to give Britten’s work a modern-day hue, says Barker-Caven. He was given full creative freedom, with one condition set by McGahon ­­­—no togas. Both men reckon the opera’s modern spin will, or at least should, draw a younger audience who maybe have not gone to the opera much, or at all.

Barker-Caven says: “I would simply say to people who love going to see a great story, who want to be engaged, want to be brought to the front of their seat, but don’t go to opera because they think, ‘Opera’s not for me’ — shatter your own convention.

“Come to see this. I don’t believe there should be any right-minded person who goes to the cinema or theatre but not the opera. Open up to the idea that it’s a great story, which still has enormous resonances today, packed with extraordinary music and young artists who are going to knock your socks off with ­calibre and commitment. That is a night you will not forget.”

The ramifications of IYO’s ambitious manifesto may take some time to pan out, although it has secured Arts Council ­funding for 2015.

Cast member Ross Scanlon, who takes the role of the Male Chorus, is a native of Bray, Co Wicklow, but has been based in London for the past four years. Having started his studies at DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama, he is a recent graduate of the Royal Academy of Music’s prestigious Opera School programme­ and says he has “no plans to return [to Ireland] any time soon”, because there is a lack of opportunities here for opera singers of any age. Still, he is grateful for the possibilities that IYO presents for future ­generations.

“When I left Ireland four years ago, the opera scene was pretty sparse,” says Scanlon. “There were a couple of companies going in Dublin [Opera Theatre Company is one of them], but the main company, Opera Ireland, had been removed after its funding collapsed. There was nothing for anyone. Ireland has an amazing group of opera singers, but unfortunately they’re all abroad. So the fact there is now an Irish Youth Opera, like its UK equivalent British Youth Opera, is great.”

At 27, he says his role in The Rape of Lucretia is important for his career as it will prove he is capable of taking on parts usually reserved for older voices.

He says: “I think we all hope that there might be casting directors and agents in the audience. Word of mouth spreads quite a lot in the music world in general, so hopefully it’ll open doors and avenues for all of us.

“For IYO to give us this opportunity at this point, when you’re still trying to carve a career, is amazing. And Stephen, Colette and Michael haven’t treated us like children, or spoon-fed us in any way; they’ve treated us as young professional singers and they demand a level of professionalism from us.”

“I’ve learnt so much already,” adds Scanlon, gathering up his notes before returning to the rehearsal room. “It’s a really brave decision for IYO because it’s not a light-hearted subject matter, either.

“They didn’t just pick The Magic Flute and do something safe. They’re being brave, ­making a statement and setting the bar. I just really hope that we can do it justice.”

The Rape of Lucretia is at the Everyman, Cork on Sept 9; the O’Reilly Theatre, Dublin, on

Sept 11-12; and An Tain Theatre, Dundalk, on Sept 14; ­irishyouthopera.ie