'Within an hour and a half of the curtain call, I was in the shed lambing'

"I did a concert about two years ago in the National Concert Hall with a friend of mine from England who was conducting. I was in my tails and everything like that; but within an hour and a half of the curtain call, I was in the shed lambing. I remember texting my friend a picture of the sheep and he wrote back saying, ‘You have a great life’.

“I grew up helping out on the family sheep farm near Punchestown in Co Kildare. A few years ago, the opportunity came up for me to farm, and I thought, ‘Yes, this is something that I’d love to do’.

The music probably comes from my grandmother, Josie Behan

"Generally in January, I sit down and plan the whole year ahead. I would often know what I’m doing next year singing wise, so it’s about just working the two so that they complement each other. There’s a ying and a yang; and it’s very grounding.

“The music probably comes from my grandmother, Josie Behan. My mother died when I was very young and we lived beside my grandmother. She was the organist in the local church and was a big musical influence on me growing up. But I was a big Beatles fan too when I was a kid, I loved The Killers and Keane in college and then Irish groups like The Dubliners and The Clancy Brothers as well.

“It was really only after my grandmother died that I decided to get some singing lessons, and through fate and luck and friends, I ended up going to Dr Veronica (Ronnie) Dunne. I was actually in UCD at the time doing my undergrad in history and politics, and singing part-time with Ronnie. But Ronnie isn’t like one lesson a week. You could have three or four lessons a week with Ronnie, depending on what she thought your capability was or what you needed.

When I finished my degree, I went straight into the Royal Irish Academy of Music until 2012

“In 2008, a conductor came over from Italy. They were doing a production of Don Pasquale and I auditioned for him with Ronnie. He picked me, so I went to Italy for the summer and that’s when it really became quite serious. When I finished my degree, I went straight into the Royal Irish Academy of Music until 2012.

"After that, I worked in Glyndebourne Opera House, just out of London, for two seasons. That was my first experience of being immersed in it fully and I realised that this was really something that I wanted to do. These days, my work is a combination of contract work and private work and I do my own concerts, as well as teaching. I think coming from a farming background, it’s always been important to me to be self-employed if I could be.

You learn to sing in these languages mostly phonetically; though I was in Sicily recently and you’d be surprised how much you can actually speak

“My dream role would be Rodolfo in La bohème, and of course, everyone wants to sing in The Met Opera House in New York. Well over half of my repertoire would be in Italian, and then French and German. You learn to sing in these languages mostly phonetically; though I was in Sicily recently and you’d be surprised how much you can actually speak. But when it comes to opera these days, it’s about acting as much as singing.

"You’re competing with so many different forms of entertainment – you can get anything on your iPhone these days – so to actually get people to come to an opera, they really have to believe it. That’s very important to me. It’s about people losing themselves and it being accessible; but it’s only accessible really when people really ‘get’ it.

The most important thing with my voice is obviously what food you eat, what you drink, but also I swim a lot and I find that very helpful

“When I’m working on the farm, I would deliberately let my voice rest. Coming up to important gigs, my routine would change. The most important thing with my voice is obviously what food you eat, what you drink, but also I swim a lot and I find that very helpful. You get all the upper body moving and you take your breath quite low when you swim in the pool for buoyancy, and that’s really important when you go to sing; the breath has to be low and free.

“Though coming into cold and flu season, it’s keeping away from people that’s the problem sometimes. The animals are OK!”

Patrick Hyland will perform his annual Christmas concert featuring festive favourites and opera classics at the Moat Theatre Naas on 20 December. For further information, visit his website or follow on Facebook.