Irish opera singers can wait ages for a good opportunity after their degree, and now two come along at once, writes Arminta Wallace

We often hear about how many young, talented singers we have in Ireland: we don't, alas, often see these singers in action on Irish opera stages. This is partly because we have so few occasions for opera in this country - but it also has to do with the absence of recognised career paths. We have first-rate singing teachers, but once a singer graduates, they emerge straight into a fast-moving world of conflicting demands and relentless pressure. Small wonder that for many young artists the wheels come off, leading to serious problems.

Irish opera companies are addressing this difficulty, interestingly, from almost opposite angles. Last week saw the beginning of Wexford Festival Opera's artists' development programme, an 11-day "blitz" of coaching sessions, masterclasses and lectures, many of which are open to the public. The idea, according to project administrator Anna Skrine, is to fill in the "post-grad gap" for the 22 young singers, 12 of them from Ireland, who take part. "For our first year we're concentrating on technique and musicianship," she says. "That's where you need to start; everything else will follow."

Opera Theatre Company's young associate artists' programme, which arose out of a short course called The Opera Studio the company ran five years ago, takes more of a long-term tack. It gives five young Irish singers a close association with the company - studying everything from vocal coaching through language training to good business practice - over two academic years. "We want to develop a long-term relationship with young artists," says chief executive Andrew McLellan. "This includes casting them in company productions where possible."

"Don't get musical on me, now . . . " Dennis O'Neill is a tenor of considerable repute, but he looks and sounds like a Pictish chieftain - or a remorseless judge on some operatic version of Popstars. At an early-morning masterclass in the Methodist/Presbyterian church on Anne Street in Wexford, he chips away at his students with the grim determination of a musical Michelangelo. Time and again a singer takes a deep breath and begins. "Stop . . . no, no. Listen."

The singer begins again. O'Neill shakes his head. "You're doing it again. Do it this way . . ."

Stop. Start. Stop. Start again. It's a painful process, but when he gets his message across and the young voices let rip, the results are astounding.

Is it, I ask the 23-year-old Irish mezzo-soprano Norah King as we scamper through the rain to another class, as terrifying as it looks from the pews? "Yes," she says. "He's hard on us - but he's such a good teacher that it's OK. A half-hour class is about right, because it's really very tiring. You're concentrating really hard, and then you have to listen really hard as well. Often when you're told 'Yes, that's it', you can't figure out how, or why, it's it. Because as a singer, you don't hear what the audience hears."

She tapes all her classes, which helps. "Then you can hear what you've done. It's amazing. You go - 'Oh, so that's what he was telling me to do."

Singing for one's peers, she adds, is nerve-racking but enlightening. "You learn a lot from watching the other singers. Everyone's voice is different, but the physics of singing is always the same."

King still has a year of her singing studies with Veronica Dunne at the Royal Irish Academy of Music to go; then, she says, she'll probably apply to join the National Opera Studio in London. First, however, there's a class with the larger-than-life - and typically outspoken - Australian soprano Gwenyth Annear. "We don't expect miracles today," Annear tells her, beaming. "Miracles tomorrow. That's the big thing."

The pianist Ingrid Surgenor - fresh from a stint at Bayreuth, working on Parsifal with Pierre Boulez - is an unobtrusive but incisive presence, chipping in with pertinent remarks on a range of topics from dynamics and volume to French pronunciation. "When they write 'piano' in the score, don't forget that's piano for 60 people. It's not so much 'soft' as a colour, a sensation."

Coaching, of course, also plays a major role in Opera Theatre Company's young associate artists' programme - and if the Wexford initiative has coalesced around the forceful presence of Dennis O'Neill, OTC has its own secret weapon in Brenda Hurley, currently vocal coach at the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam.

"She's so modest and nurturing with the singers," says Andrew McLellan. "And then over dinner you find out that she was head of music on Simon Rattle's Peter Grimes at Salzburg - and that he asked her to come and do it. In international opera the maestro takes all the credit, but behind the scenes you find that there are all these vocal coaches and repetiteurs who work at nitty-gritty level with the singers, and who know the business inside out. Our singers work with Brenda on a regular basis. We also link up with the Goethe Institute and the Italian Cultural Institute to help them develop their language skills - a typically selfless OTC move, because we sing in English."

Singing for a living is, he adds, a tough life. "Singers need a huge amount of encouragement, and that's why we like to have an ongoing relationship with them. Sometimes, we have to tell them what they don't want to hear. I've found that a lot of young singers are, literally clueless - even about simple things such as organising their schedule or returning phone calls. They have to realise that they can't make it on talent alone; and in the early stages, especially, they've got to get a good reputation for how they deal with people in the business."

The key to OTC's approach, he says, lies in the long-term nature of the project and the way it integrates the singers into the company's productions. "We're very conscious that we have to offer them a real benefit. There's no use offering them a role, if it's not the right role. But casting young artists alongside older, more experienced singers is something OTC has always done," he says, citing Patricia Bardon, Majella Cullagh, Ailish Tynan and Sinead Campbell as examples.

"It's not about forcing them into the limelight, but about allowing them to develop in a nurturing environment. Our programme is ongoing, open-ended and individually tailored to where each singer is at. We also chose singers who would really get something out of it. It wasn't that we chose the five best singers in Ireland, but that we chose singers with the ability to grow and develop."

At the Wexford young artists' programme, the emphasis is on technical skills. "The number one priority for a young singer is good technique - so that they can forget about technique," says Anna Skrine. "That's crucial. So is a bit of guidance on what they should be singing now. Don't sing the Countess when you should be singing Suzanna. Then, how to express passion - through the voice."

Skrine trained as a singer, but was dogged by health problems. "In my twenties I was in an awful way. I had a sore throat for two years, 'flu every six weeks. And I was very overweight. Then I happened to go to Canada for six weeks - and the sore throats vanished. When I came back, I started drinking tea and coffee again; and back they came."

Having made the connection, Skrine has developed a holistic approach to some of the basic problems faced by young singers and now specialises in nutrition, allergy testing and visualisation techniques. "As a singer your body is your instrument," she says. "You have to learn to look after it."

Two of OTC's young artists have been cast in its autumn production of Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea: Anna Devin will sing the role of Damigella, and Daryl Simpson will sing the Soldier.

One of the most striking aspects of a good idea is that it will produce surprising results. Another is that it will develop organically. "The buzz that the YAA programme creates within OTC is quite extraordinary," says Andrew McLellan. "The young artists are energetic and charming, and bring the office to life on a day-to-day basis."

In Wexford, meanwhile, the sound of singers hard at work has caused no littler consternation. "God - is the summer over already?" was the comment of two local ladies to the chief executive of Wexford Festival Opera, Jerome Hynes. "Winter in Wexford normally starts in mid-September with the arrival of the festival company," he says. "When people heard singing, they got a bit of a fright." No reflection, obviously, on the young singers.

Hynes admits that in the first year of the project, it's unlikely Wexford will get everything right. "But this has been 18 months in the planning - and we're in it for the long haul," he says. "We're not going to do it once and then forget about it."

It is hoped that the ADP will become a major part of the annual work of the festival in the years ahead, especially in the context of its development programme, which will increase the number of physical facilities available to the young artists - rehearsal rooms and so forth. Wexford's young singers held a gala concert at the Theatre Royal on Friday.

OTC, says Andrew McLennan, also plans to develop its programme. "We'd like to develop young directors and repetiteurs." He warns that in a project like this, it's important to know your limits. "There's a great deal that companies can do for Irish artists; but for that work to be meaningful, we have to know when it's time to let them fly the nest. People think that if there's more work on offer in Ireland, there'll be a queue of Irish singers waiting to come back and do it. But it's a two-way street. Young Irish singers have to take opportunities elsewhere as well."