A New Life: Sandra Oman is being paid to do something she adores. No wonder she gave up the day job. Sylvia Thompson reports
Sandra Oman's transformation from civil servant working in the housing maintenance department of Dublin Corporation to an opera singer taking lead roles in operas such as Rigoletto, La Bohéme and Turandot sounds almost too fantastical to believe. However, when you learn a little more about her, you begin to see a musical thread running right through her family that offered her the possibility to pursue greatness.
Born in the Liberties in Dublin, Oman went to the local presentation convent and college. "My father, Terence, was a boy soprano and my mother, Dolores, played the violin. I also learned the violin but wasn't much good.
"My parents loved opera and both my grandfathers were good singers. I always sang the leads in school musicals and my happiest school memories were when I was performing. I never thought singing was something I would do for a living - just a nice hobby," she explains.
Leaving school in the 1980s, she faced a bleak jobs market in Ireland. "Jobs were so hard to come by, it was a case of taking what you got. I applied for the bank, Aer Lingus and Dublin Corporation. I got them all but chose Dublin Corporation because it was the job which enabled me to go to singing lessons at night."
From 1986 to 1999, Sandra worked for Dublin Corporation, first in the house construction section, then briefly in the planning department before working for years on the public counter in the housing maintenance division.
"We spent our days taking complaints from tenants of the city's flats and houses. Some of them were very irate. I'll always remember one day that someone brought rats into the office in a bag and another day when someone brought in a jar of sewage.
"There were three of us working in a small office and we got the frustration and anger of tenants full on. Luckily for us, we all got on well together - in fact, one of my colleagues is still my best friend but she's a policewoman now - it would have been an intolerable situation otherwise."
Oman's interest in singing led her to study a degree in Italian and French by night at University College Dublin from 1997 to 2001. "I had met my husband, Conor Farren, when I was in my early 20s. He is a singing teacher so he often worked in the evenings as well. Still, it was four nights a week for four years which was to enable me to become an opera singer."
Many people who change jobs after years working in one area speak of a turning point of sorts. However, with Sandra Oman, it seems more like her singing career was developing at a steady pace while she soldiered on at the day job.
"I entered Feis Ceoil and did lunchtime recitals, preparing myself for stage performances. I did one or two early professional engagements such as singing Dorabella in Cosi Fan Tutte at Trinity College Dublin. By the mid-1990s, I was beginning to get offers of professional employment from Irish opera companies."
Being married to someone in the same field as herself has undoubtedly paid off. So when the time came to give up the day job, she received great support from her husband.
"It's been a case of never looking back since. The thing that makes me happiest in life - apart from my family - is singing. For all the precarious nature of the work, the bottom line is I'm being paid for something I adore doing. How good is that?"
In the past few years, Sandra Oman has received huge critical acclaim through performances at home and abroad. Although now totally immersed in the world of opera, she is keen to point out that there have been other opera singers who, like her, started off in more modest positions.
"Kathleen Ferrier, the English mezzo soprano, was a civil servant as well and the Italian baritone, Giorgio Zancanarro, was a policeman."
Right now, she is rehearsing for her role as Flora in Verdi's La Traviata which opened on Saturday in the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin as part of Opera Ireland's winter season.
She speaks of the various ways she prepares for each show: "You are filled with nervous energy just before performances. But, in fact, the whole day is built around the evening performance. It starts the minute I get up in the morning and continues by working out what times to eat at, when to get some rest and then there's the mental preparation."
Rehearsals are more physically than mentally tiring, she admits. But even before rehearsals, she is learning. "It takes weeks of singing it every day so that my voice - as well as my brain - learns the part," she explains.
During both her rehearsal and performance schedules, Oman says she pays close attention to her health. "Sleep is the number one essential for me. I drink very little alcohol because it dehydrates the vocal chords. I make sure I eat healthily - sometimes I take vitamins but, for me, a fillet steak and vegetables are what give me strength before a performance.
"Too much coffee is dehydrating too but that's a bit of a weakness," she says with a laugh, sipping her last mouthful of coffee before she heads back to rehearsal.