A Marriage made in heaven for starlets!

Young singers with the Welsh National Opera talk to DIANE PARKES ahead of their trip to Birmingham

- DIANE PARKES

SOPRANO Eiry Price was a student when she watched her first opera Welsh National Opera performing Puccini’s La bohème. From that moment, Eiry, who was studying at the Royal College of Music in London, decided on her future.

“I knew I wanted to sing but I didn’t know before watching that show that I wanted to be an opera singer,” she recalls. “It clicked for me there - ‘I want to do this, I want to do what they are doing’

“It came over me - the music, the text, the story. It’s also the drama, the tragedy, the love, the heartbreak - it just moves me.”

Eiry’s dream has come true as she is currently a WNO associate artist, taking part in a one-year programme in which young singers are offered support, training and mentorship early in their careers. The scheme has introduced Eiry, from Pencaenewydd in North Wales, to a new world.

“I'd never sung in a full opera before and I've learnt so much already,” she says. “I've had so many lessons and coachings and so much support that I feel like it’s really shaping me into a young artist.”

One of the advantages of being part of WNO’s associate artist scheme is the chance to sing roles in their productions. This spring Eiry plays the young lover Barbarina and covers the servant Susanna in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and performs Second Niece in Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes. Both productions play Birmingham Hippodrome in May.