Veronica Dunne

Veronica Dunne (2 August 1927 – 5 April 2021), also known as Ronnie Dunne, was an Irish operatic soprano and voice teacher who was described as "an Irish national treasure". After a successful operatic career at the Dublin Opera and the Royal Opera House in London, she focused on voice teaching in Dublin, where she trained future international singers. The triennial Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition was established in 1995. She received the National Concert Hall Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

Dunne was born in Dublin on 20 August 1927. She was the youngest of three children of a well-to-do family. Her father worked as a master builder whose construction firm built the church in Foxrock in the early 1930s. Dunne began singing when she was 11 years old. She studied initially in Dublin with Hubert Rooney. She then sold her pony for £125 in order to fund her dream of studying music in Italy. She went to Rome in 1946 to study with Soldini Calcagni and Francesco Calcatelli. Her family met with Sarsfield Hogan, the secretary of the Department of Finance at the time, to discuss the issue of her monthly allowance, which would have breached foreign exchange controls. Sarsfield permitted her to receive the money on the condition that she return to Ireland in the future and teach her young compatriots to sing.

Dunne made her operatic debut in Dublin in 1948 as Micaëla in Bizet's Carmen with the Dublin Grand Opera Society, and appeared there in 1949 as Marguerite in Gounod's Faust. She won the Concorso Lirico Milano in 1952, which brought her the role of Mimì in Leoncavallo's La bohème at the Teatro Nuovo in Milan, which in turn brought her a contract from the Royal Opera House in London, where she first appeared as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. She performed at the house alongside Joan Sutherland and Kathleen Ferrier. In 1958, she appeared as Blanche in the first performance at the house of Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites. She also performed with Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, and Wexford Festival Opera. She returned to the stage in 2002 to appear as Countess in Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin.