As an opera singer, you might be expected to be a bit of a diva. But, as Cara O’Sullivan points out, when you’ve grown up in an Irish family you don’t tend to get away with that sort of thing.

“I’d come home and be all ‘dah-lings’ and ‘la-vely,’” the soprano smiles of the early days of her career.

“And my mother would say: ‘Now dah-ling; I think it’s time you put out the bins.”

Maybe that’s why – although she has performed everywhere from Croke Park to the Sydney Opera House and been described as “the Irish superstar of her generation” – the Cork woman is just as happy holidaying in a mobile home in west Waterford, shops for her stage outfits in Dunnes and Debenhams and admits that, while people always comment that she walks on to a stage “like I own the place”, her regal procession is, really, just to make sure she doesn’t topple off the edge.

Which is also, perhaps, why her one-woman show, An Evening With Cara, running at The Everyman Theatre, Cork, is not just for the opera aficionados but for those who like a bit of banter along with their O Mio Babbiono Caro, with soaring arias to sing along to so you can blow away the post-Christmas cobwebs.

“Spring is coming,” says Cara. “And I don’t believe in January blues.”

Cara grew up near The Lough in Cork city, where her late parents, Donal and Ann, were both members of St Francis’ Choir.

It was there that she learned to read music – “in the same way I learned to read words” – and by the age of 12 she was, in her sister’s words, “like Maria Callas on tablets”. Although, one of her abiding memories from school is of everybody bursting out laughing when she unleashed her powerful voice.

Still, after successfully auditioning to sing for Handel’s Messiah at 16, she began formal voice coaching at 17 at the Cork School of Music, but admits that it took a long time to gain the courage to pursue singing as a career, instead making sandwiches in a cafe while raising her daughter Christine as a single parent.

“I wasn’t sure if it was for me,” she says simply, “and I stepped back for a number of years.”

Second chances

When she did return, however, she did so in somewhat spectacular style, winning the 1990 RTÉ Musician of the Future award, despite “shaking with fright”.

“I had never been in the concert hall before, I had never been on television and I had never sung with an orchestra before,” she says, “and at my age, I had a lot more to lose than the younger girls.”

Having been granted a second chance, Cara wasn’t going to let it slip by, though she credits her mother, without whose support she could never have pursued her dream.

“I could be away for four months and mammy used to look after my daughter for me,” she says.

“But when I was home, I really was home. The minute I was finished, I used to race – really race – home on whatever bus, plane, car, ferry...

“My mother was an incredible woman and she used to say to me: ‘Get on with it. If there’s a problem, we’ll tell you.’”

Tough times

However, despite the fact that she was following her dream, Cara admits there were still tough times, from dealing with difficult directors who sent her home in tears, right up to discovering a tumour on her leg in the lead up to her debut with the Welsh National Opera.

She persevered to rehearse while going through radiotherapy, with her last week of treatment coinciding with the first week of performing; but went into “crash mode” when she got home.

“I went down like a stone,” she says, adding that she was not in a good place “spiritually, physically or mentally” after treatment ended, but the support of a counsellor helped her to process what she had been through.

“It took me a while to get back up – but I did,” she smiles.

However, Cara faced a further challenge when, in the lead-up to her debut with the English National Opera, she had to undergo surgery after developing nodules on her vocal chords.

“It’s like a singer ends up painting themselves into a corner vocally and can do less and less and less,” she says of the condition, explaining that while the decision to operate was “scary”, she knew she was in safe hands and focused on getting back on stage.

“And within 14 weeks to the day of the operation, I was,” she says.

Since then, there has been no stopping her. Whether it’s performing in Croke Park on All-Ireland final day, the Millennium Stadium for the Heineken Cup and Sydney Opera House (she got a kick out of the fact that Olivia Newton John was in her dressing room the night before) to the upcoming three-night stint at The Everyman, where she will sing new arrangements of her favourite showstoppers with a small chamber orchestra.

Though, despite every obstacle that she has overcome, Cara admits she still lives in fear of one thing: laryngitis.

“I’m paranoid,” she laughs.

An Evening With Cara runs at The Everyman Theatre, Cork, from 28-30 January at 8pm. Tickets €26/concession €23. For further information or bookings, visit www.everymancork.com or call 021-450-1673.