THE 1997 Veronica Dunne singing Competition was a very different sort of event from the first. The conditions of entry were broadened to allow in competitors of Irish descent alongside those of Irish parentage.
Welcome as this gesture may be in terms of embracing a wider definition of Irish identity, it seemed to me to take little cognizance of the lamentable under-provision for music within the Irish educational system.
The admission of competitors from more musical nurturing societies left a clear mark on the success of Irish singers in the competition. The Irish accounted for some 60 per cent of those in the quarter finals, reducing to 40 per cent in the finals, and just one out of the top three. And although it must be said that the changes created something of an unlevel playing field, the other major consequence was that the standard of singing in the final round at the National Concert Hall last night was significantly higher than at the first competition in 1995.
First to be heard was the light-voiced Australian soprano Natalie Christie who showed her strongest suit in an excerpt from Stravinsky's Rake's Progress and was duly awarded a special prize for the best performance of a 20th-century aria.
She was followed by the Derry mezzo soprano Doreen Curran, whose studious and sometimes stiff delivery seemed to be impeding the expression of a more appealing underlying freshness. The judges registered their appreciation of her potential by awarding her the Dame Joan Sutherland Trophy as the most promising young singer.
Soprano Franzita Whelan (from Portlaoise and now based in London) immediately impressed as a stronger personality and surer dramatic presence, well exposed in the Willow Song and Ave Maria from Verdi's Otello, Mozart's, Alma grande was a little too pressured for my taste, perhaps - the result of trying to invest too much venom into the words. Like the first two singers, Franzita Whelan also took, a special prize, for the best performance of a Brahms song in the earlier rounds of the competition.
The single male finalist was the tenor Simon O'Neill from New Zealand, a cocky, characterful performer whose overtly interventionist musical style might work more persuasively on the dramatic stage than in a concert situation.
It didn't take long for the final contestant, the Paris-born, US-resident Norah Amsellem to announce her belief in her competition-winning qualities or to make clear her delivery of them. Hers was not by any means the most immediately appealing of the finalists' voices but she was, by a margin, the most fully developed performer.
She showed a real mastery of line (carried her phrases through and knew how to project over a pause), had a sense of bravura that took account of a lot more than glitter, and knew how to milk an audience for every moment she was worth.
The jury made no mistake in placing her first, following with, in order, Whelan, O'Neill, Curran and Christie.
