Irish Timeswriters review the Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition and opening night at the Temple Bar Irish Music and Culture festival
Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition, NCH, Dublin
The Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition has been an institution of extreme variability. It was originally open only to Irish singers, and later, for the 2003 competition, only to singers from the EU. Now, not for the first time, it is international. In 1995 it launched the career of its first winner, Orla Boylan. But two other winners, Norah Amsellem and Byung-Soon Lee, did not perform in Ireland after their win.
The 2003 event was in my experience a nadir, with low performing standards. Happily, the line-up of seven finalists at the National Concert Hall on Thursday eclipsed those of the previous competition.
Matters were greatly helped by the sensitivity of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra's outgoing conductor Laurent Wagner, who was conferred as a Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite earlier in the week, and who served on and off the podium as a member of the competition jury.
In advance of the finals, the smart money was on the Japanese soprano Mari Moriya (28) and on the night, both audience (judging by warmth of applause) and jury concurred.
Moriya, who took the €10,000 first prize with her arias by Bellini, Verdi and Mozart, offered the evening's most multi-faceted singing. She had an easy command of expressive vocal line and was capable of - but not insistent on - generous tone production.
Her coloratura may not have been balletic in its rhythmic precision, but she showed a panache, and, in Mozart's Der Hölle Rache,a fearlessness.
Irish mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught (20) may be more familiar with ushering in the aisles of the NCH than delivering on its stage, but there was no sign of the novelty of the situation in her performances.
It was impressive the way she carried the import of the words and the weight of the vocal line in Purcell's touching When I am laid in earth. In Mozart's Non so piùshe sang stylishly, although at some moments she swallowed some of the words.
In Gounod's demonstrative Que fais-tu, blanche tourterelle she revealed an engaging personality and a swagger that brought her cheers from the audience and helped secure her the €5,000 second prize.
Welsh soprano Elizabeth Donovan (26), took the €4,000 third prize with a direct and blunt proficiency. Irish mezzo- soprano Naomi O'Connell, who was awarded the €3,000 fourth prize, sounded less than comfortable in Handel and Britten and more at ease in Massenet.
British soprano Stephanie Corley (26) didn't seem at home with arias by Mozart and Gershwin, at least not until the end of My man's gone now,when she flamed into life. She was awarded the €2,000 fifth prize.
The final two places went to Mexican tenor Dante Alcala (32), possessor of a fine voice, who stuck too steadfastly to his strengths and became mono- dimensional. Irish soprano Celine Byrne (29), placed seventh, began with lots of promise, but seemed to lose control due to nerves and a dry throat.
The remaining prizes went to Dante Alcala (the €3,000 Anthony Kearns Music Fund for the best male singer), Tara Erraught (the €500 Dermot Troy Prize for the best Irish singer), and Naomi O'Connell (both the €500 Dame Joan Sutherland Prize for the most promising young singer, and the €500 Hugo Wolf Prize for the best performance of a German song). - Michael Dervan
Edel Fox & Ronan Flaherty; Peter Horan; Gerry Harrington; Seán & Seán Óg Potts, Temple Bar Trad Irish Music and Culture festival
The Project was an ideal venue for the opening night of this year's Temple Bar Trad festival, bolstered by Tony Kearns's fine photographic exhibition, From Clare to Here, documenting musicians in full flight at the Willie Clancy festival.
The night's programming was, if anything, overzealous, bequeathing to punters an embarrassment of riches that sated the appetite, but risked overwhelming it.
Edel Fox and Ronan Flaherty made a confident duo on concertina and fiddle, with Fox's clean lines tracing an uncluttered pathway through the jig set bookended by The Maid on the Green and The Lark in the Morning. The pair lent a new twist to The Galway Hornpipe and Mrs Galvin's, celebrating the childlike quality of the former, and basking in the simplicity of its melody line.
Accompanied by guitarist Mike McCague and Jack Talty on keyboards, at times the quartet lost definition and edge, due to the over-abundance of keyboards in the mix.
Fox's choice of the mischievous jig An Rógaire Dubh, was mirrored by that of father and son Seán and Seán Óg Potts, who launched headlong into a strapping version of the same tune, paired with The Cook in the Kitchen. Seán Óg's choice of a set of B pipes was brave, and yielded dividends in that it modulated the night's repertoire, enticing listeners ever closer to the tune.
Séan Potts's whistle skipped easily over a solo reading of the slow air, Sliabh Geal gCua, and Séan Óg corralled his cantankerous instrument into sublime submission with a fine Donegal version of Trim the Velvet and The Pure Drop, the latter a highly rhythmic and restrained tour de force.
Sligo flute player Peter Horan was an able headliner, accompanied by fiddle player Gerry Harrington and Ollie Ross on piano. Horan's affinity with the repertoire of Michael Coleman was everywhere, but floated free on the pair of hornpipes, Ladd O'Beirne's and Saul's Hornpipe. A final, ragged encore brought Fox and Flaherty into Horan's ambit. A tighter, more disciplined programme would have served this richly populated programme better. - Siobhán Long
