Mozart still the master
FOR the first time in her stellar career, soprano Virginia Kerr will perform at the Cork International Choral Festival on May 2. The Dublin-born singer will be one of the soloists at the opening gala performance of Mozart’s final masterpiece, Requiem, at City Hall.
The Orchestra of St Cecelia will lead the Goethe-Institut Choir with Kerr’s singing interspersed throughout the requiem. Her most recent performance of Requiem was at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin on Good Friday.
“Mozart is challenging to sing,” says Kerr. “He was a genius and writes fantastically for the voice. But the Requiem is difficult to sing well. You have to have a very clean and pure sound. I’ll only be singing for about 10 minutes in total and it’s the same for the other soloists [Sharon Carty, Eamonn Mulhall and Philip O’Reilly].”
As Kerr says, the Requiem, a setting of the Latin Mass for the dead, is particularly moving given that it was the last piece Mozart wrote. He died before finishing it, leaving elaborate instructions about the composition, allowing his pupil, Franz Xaver Sussmayr, to complete it. As well as the Requiem, the Goethe-Institut Choir will perform Pergolesi’s Magnificat.
Kerr has sung with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and has performed in iconic venues such as the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.
From a horse-racing family in Co Meath, Kerr was discovered at the age of 16 when she was a pupil at Mount Sackville Convent in Dublin. “A wonderful nun, Sister Peter Cronin, was doing auditions for a school musical. She said she’d like to train my voice. So I was trained by her and she was amazing. She only died last year.”
Kerr sings in more languages than she speaks. “The standard languages I studied at college were French, German and Italian. I sing in them and also learned to sing phonetically in Russian and Czech. You have to know what you’re singing about even if you don’t know the language.”
As well as travelling the world singing, Kerr gives master classes to choirs in voice training. She teaches at the Royal Irish Academy of Music at the University of Maynooth. She also qualified as a psychotherapist a couple of years ago. “I just graduated from Dublin City University with a master’s degree in psychotherapy. My thesis concentrated on performance anxiety in singers. It’s something I deal with a lot. I see people privately for consultations. I have suffered from performance anxiety myself, but not excessively. But I do understand it and I think every performer does. A lot can depend on what’s going on in your life at the time of performing.”
Kerr is the chairperson of the board of directors of Opera Theatre Company. “We’re the national touring company in Ireland. We have a young artists’ programme and give as much work as we can to Irish artists. Most people have to go away. But that’s good because we’re a small country and have to stretch ourselves. I’ve been lucky, working both abroad and in Ireland.”
A strong advocate of contemporary music, Kerr recently sang the role of Antonia Frieth in the European and Italian premiere of Michael Berkeley’s opera For You. The libretto was written by British author Ian McEwan.
“Ian McEwan is about to turn his book, Atonement, into an opera. I’m always open to new material if it’s well written. You can usually learn from it. But the thing about contemporary music is that sometimes, it only gets one performance, which is a shame. Opera is a very expensive art form but it is amazing so it deserves to be supported.”
John Dexter, who conducts the Goethe-Institut Choir, sings Kerr’s praises. “She’s a real international star and a very inspiring person who takes a lot of interest in her students.” Dexter hasn’t been to the Cork International Choral Festival since the early 1980s, when he was a judge.
“It’s a great honour to be conducting the opening gala concert at the festival. A huge proportion of international choirs rank the festival as one of the most prestigious in the world. In its early years, it was quite unique in that it attracted Eastern European choirs from behind the Iron Curtain. That had a snowball effect, attracting choirs of high standards from countries nearer to Ireland. The standard at the festival has always been very high. The festival has been an inspiration to us in Dublin.”
Originally from England, Dexter has been living in Ireland for 35 years. “I came here to be the organist at St Patrick’s Cathedral and did that for 24 years. As well as conducting the choir, I teach at St Patrick’s Cathedral Grammar School.”
Dexter’s family ensemble, comprising his wife and seven children, are taking part in the TG4 reality show, Feis and Blood, which is searching for Ireland’s most entertaining family. All the Dexters play musical instruments.
“Bringing up the children to be musical wasn’t intentional but I suppose it must be in the genes. It’s like the family trade. My father was a choir boy in St Paul’s Cathedral in London and my wife’s family is musical as well.”
Music permeates the Dexter’s lives. Indeed, Mozart’s Requiem could be said to have permeated popular culture. Movements from the composition can he heard throughout mass media. Companies such as Nike and Yves St Laurent use Mozart in their commercials, and he also regularly pops up in films.
“Eine Kleine Nacht is annoyingly used as people’s mobile ringtone. I wish it wasn’t,” says Dexter. But it is testament to the popularity of the world’s greatest classical composer. The gala concert offers the public the opportunity to experience the power and emotion of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart performed by the crème of choral, orchestral and singing talent.
* Opening Gala Concert of Mozart’s Requiem at City Hall, May 2, 8pm.
* The King’s Singers at the Cork Opera House, May 3, 8pm: The National Chamber Choir of Ireland presents ‘An Irish Colloquy’ at St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, May 4, 7.30pm.
* Evocations with The Gentlemen Singers from the Czech Republic perform at the North Cathedral, May 4, 10pm.
* The Fleischmann International Trophy Competition Gala is at City Hall on May 5, 3pm & 8pm.
* The closing gala, a choral extravaganza presenting the diverse musical and cultural backgrounds of the international choirs at the festival, takes place at City Hall on May 6, 8pm.
* www.corkchoral.ie.
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