Lecturer in Singing
Soprano Mary Hegarty’s early studies at the Cork School of Music led to a place at the National Opera Studio in London and masterclasses with Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Sir Peter Pears. She represented her country at the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition and subsequently built an impressive career throughout Europe on the operatic stage, concert platform and in regular broadcasts with RTE and the BBC.
Since making her professional debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, under the baton of Bernard Haitink, Mary has sung principal roles with English National Opera, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, Opera Northern Ireland, City of Birmingham Touring Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Garsington Opera, D’Oyly Carte, Reisopera, La Monnaie, Vlaamse Opera, Adelaide Festival, Buxton Opera, Opera Zuid, Athens Festival, Opera Theatre Company, OPERA 2005, the Dublin Grand Opera Society and R&R Musical Society. Oratorio and concert appearances include the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, many performances of Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, Carmina Burana, Maritana, La Bohème (at the RTE Proms), and the Irish premieres of Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio and Mahler’s Eighth Symphony.
She has graced the stages of the Royal Festival Hall, Barbican, Birmingham Symphony Hall, National Concert Hall and others, with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra and Concert Orchestras, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Philharmonia, Ulster Orchestra, Orchestre Nationale de Belgique and London Symphony Orchestra.
Mary Hegarty’s recordings include her solo album A Voice is Calling, and CD recordings of Patience and Orpheus in the Underworld with the D’Oyly Carte (Sony), Silver Tassie (ENO) and Carmen (Chandos). She has recorded Handel’s Messiah with both Glyndebourne Opera and the Black Dyke Mills Band and Huddersfield Choral Society. Mary played Gilda in a cameo in Woody Allen’s movie Matchpoint and has featured in special TV and DVD recordings of The Silver Tassie, Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti, Jonathan Dove’s Buzz on the Moon and Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince.
Ongoing performance projects include a recital of lieder themed as ‘Music of the Art Nouveau’, John Corigliano’s song cycle based on the poetry of Bob Dylan, and a cabaret production of ‘Mary Hegarty sings the Jazz Songbook’. Recent collaborators include the CSM Chamber Orchestra and Geoffrey Spratt in Britten’s Les Illuminations, the Vanbrugh String Quartet and Cuarteto Casals (West Cork Chamber Music Festival), pianists Ciara Moroney, Gabriela Mayer and Eleanor Malone, and her own stellar jazz quintet.
Mary was nominated for an Opera Bear Award for her portrayal of Miss Wordsworth in Opera North’s acclaimed production of Britten’s Albert Herring and she dipped her toes into the musical theatre world in a very successful production of Side by Side by Sondheim at Cork’s Everyman Palace Theatre. Recent roles have included Cunagonda in the Cork Operatic Society’s production of Candide and Belinda in Cork Opera House’s production of Dido and Aeneas, which recently toured nationwide. She has also cemented her status as a Cork icon with a cameo appearance alongside indie band the Frank and Walters at their recent sell-out anniversary concert!
A successful vocal coach and lecturer at the Cork School of Music, Mary’s students have performed at English National Opera, the BBC Proms. and the BBC’s TV series The Voice UK. She also recently acted as the voice and language coach for a British Youth Opera production of Riders to the Sea. Mary was awarded a Cork City Council bursary in 2015 to facilitate her further professional development.