Veronica Dunne, Ireland's grande dame of opera, is best known nowadays as a celebrated singing teacher with a long list of successful pupils and an established international competition named in her honour. But in a few week's time she will return to the stage - in the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin - for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century.
She passes off the surprise invitation from Opera Ireland as a clever ruse to put bums on seats. "All my friends and enemies will come together and they'll fill the house," she says, chuckling with glee.
She will perform as the Countess in Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame for four nights beginning on November 17th. She doesn't seem the slightest bit concerned that the role is "usually given to singers who have had their careers and who are near their grave". She laughs again. Laughing is something that Veronica Dunne - "Ronnie" to her friends and many of her public - does a lot. "If you haven't a sense of humour, honey, forget it," she says.
Even though her operatic debut was 54 years ago - with the Dublin Grand Opera Society as Micaela in Carmen and Marguerite in Faust - her working life is clearly far from over.
She has no intention of giving up the teaching which still occupies her six days a week, though she admits that she is cutting back a few hours to polish her Russian and prepare for her return to the operatic stage.
Early career
Ronnie has striven for perfection with her singing since the 1940s. The story of her early career, she says, has been told many times. But it is worth retelling. She began studying (in the holidays only) with the late Herbert Rooney, who was a student of Jean de Reske in Paris. In 1946 she travelled to Rome using £120 she had raised by selling her pony, Connemara Boy. There she trained with Contessa Soldini Calcagni and later with Maestro Francesco Calcatelli.
Because of restrictions on moving money out of the State, she had to plead with Sarsfield Hogan, then Secretary to the Minister of Finance, to grant her permission for a monthly dividend. In return, she promised him she would come back to Ireland and "give to the country".
But before she came back to Ireland and devoted her life to training young voices she enjoyed a great international singing career, beginning in 1952 when she won first place in the Concorso Lirico Milano. The following year she joined the company of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and made her operatic debut there as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier.
She remained with the company singing major roles and in 1958 performed in the première of Poulenc's Carmelites, singing the role of Blanche. She also took major roles with Welsh National Opera, Scottish National Opera, Sadler's Wells, Wexford Festival Opera and in oratorio all over England, Belgium and Germany.
"I love teaching"
In 1960 she started teaching with the College of Music, Dublin and then the Leinster School of Music and Drama. "I love teaching. I really love the teaching," she repeats, to make sure we know she means it. The roll-call of her pupils who are now performing internationally includes Mary Brennan, Orla Boylan, Patricia Bardon and Anthony Kearns.
Ten years ago, many of her former pupils gave a concert for her, because she says, "it was meant to be the end of my career". She made £20,000 out of it - and decided the money should go to help up-and-coming young singers. With the Friends of the Vocal Arts as trustees, and sponsorship from the ESB, the Veronica Dunne Singing Competition was born. Since then it has evolved from a contest specifically for Irish singers into The Veronica Dunne European Union Singing Competition.
"They call it my competition but I couldn't care less if they called it the Three Blind Mice competition," she says. "I just want to see this competition continuing. The committee insisted on my name on it, which was very nice of them. To me that's not the point. The point is I want a competition of this calibre to represent Ireland".
The Irish final of this season's competition takes place this Saturday in the National Concert Hall, with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra under David Brophy accompanying the five finalists: Sylvia O'Brien (soprano), Shirley Keane (soprano), Miriam Murphy (mezzo-soprano), Howard Reddy (baritone) and Sonya Keogh (mezzo-soprano). The winner will represent Ireland in the EU-wide final in Dublin next February.
Although Ronnie's life is intertwined with countless famous (and not so famous) people, she insists she is "hopeless on names". "Darling is a wonderful word, but you can't introduce two people as darling," she giggles.
Bouquet of flowers
She tells a story about a man with a "north of Ireland accent" who kept telephoning her and pleading with her for lessons about 10 years ago. She eventually agreed to teach him. When he first arrived and she opened the door, she was met by a "magnificent bouquet of flowers. I couldn't see the person on the other side, it was so big." She declined to listen to the tapes her new pupil had brought and got stuck into teaching right away. A fortnight later, his voice had developed, "he was delighted with himself and we said goodbye.
"Still the penny didn't drop," she says, "until the following week when I was watching the television with my husband and the next thing the man appears and I said, 'My God! That's the guy who's been coming to the house for singing lessons'."
Her mysterious pupil was Daniel O'Donnell.