Despite catching a cold on her way to Warrnambool, Melbourne’s Michelle McCarthy still managed to take out the top prize in the Eisteddfod’s ARIA competition on Sunday.
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It was a case of fourth time lucky for the opera singer who claimed her first win in Warrnambool, but she almost didn’t make the trip.
When Ms McCarthy realised she was sick while driving to Warrnambool on Saturday, she contemplated turning the car around and going home. The decision paid off after she took out the $3500 first prize.
“I had a really bad night’s sleep and I woke up with a blocked nose. I was really miserable but then I heard the music and I was like ‘I love this’,” she said. “Seeing the audience smiling and enjoying what you’re doing, it definitely helps you bring it to that next level, gives you confidence to go further.”
The English language teacher plans to use the money for her studies when she moves to Germany in December and hopes to get a position in an opera studio.
With 6500 competitors and an $80,000 budget, the Warrnambool Eisteddfod is one of the biggest events on the city’s calendar.
The eisteddfod season kicked off at the weekend with the return of the Aria event which attracted 19 entries, 18 of those from outside Warrnambool. Last year the event was cancelled because there were just five entries.
Eisteddfod president Robert Coffey said the Aria was one of just a handful that are still run in regional Victoria with the demise of up to 16 others over the past 20 years.
“The last five in particular have been fairly catastrophic. Part of the reason for that has been insurance, paying royalties for artist, a lack of volunteers. It’s just difficult,” Mr Coffey said. If it wasn’t for the region’s philanthropic trusts, such as the Gwen and Edna Jones Foundation, he said Warrnambool could lose its Aria too. “The Aria’s the one that we would have almost an inability to put on. It costs us over $10,000 just for the one discipline,” he said. “It’s just a high-end cultural passion and we have to pay for it.”
Mr Coffey said the gap between their costs and what they were able to cover from entry and audience fees could be as much as $15,000 to $20,000. “That’s where the philanthropics really help us out,” he said. “Warrnambool is almost quite unique in the way that some of the philanthropics have been set up to care for the community’s culture into the future.”
Mr Coffey said he expected Eisteddfod entries to be up this year, with speech and drama starting this week and debating, dancing and music events in the coming months.
