WHEN Lucy O’Byrne was a child she and her family were known as the Von Trapps because they sang together on stage.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and Lucy is taking centre-stage as Maria in The Sound of Music – one of the world's best loved musicals, inspired by the real-life singing Von Trapp family.

Lucy, runner-up on last year's series of BBC1 talent show The Voice, says she has her dad to thank for her love of musical theatre.

"My dad taught me to sing, he was the start of it all really," she says. "Me and my sister used to sing together in shows. My parents own a stage school that my sister teaches at and I helped out there when I was growing up, so we’re known to our family friends as the Von Trapps, which is now rather ironic!"

Lucy's influences include Maria Callas, Adele - "just strong, female voices, the likes of Julie Andrews, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand. No gimmicks, they just had incredible voices and could tell a story perfectly."

Dublin-born Lucy With Will.i.am as her mentor, Dublin-born Lucy was the first classical singer to reach The Voice final. She auditioned to raise her profile, hoping it would lead to auditions for shows.

"Then it just kept on going!" she smiles. "My background is musical theatre, my dad was a performer, my mum a dancer, choreographer and director and my sister an actress.

"I'd been classically training for a couple of years, for stamina, so I’d be able to deal with crazy musical theatre schedules.

"I came to classical music through that; my teacher was giving me arias as exercises and I fell in love with singing them."

She was approached to play Maria after The Voice ended last April. "I had three rounds of auditions, I was really put through my paces," she recalls. "They knew I could sing - you come second on The Voice and it’s an obvious assumption - but they have to make sure they can trust you to take the pressure because Maria is the centre of the story."

Although she had grown up singing the songs, there was one number she found tricky at first.

"I had to learn Lonely Goatherd for the auditions and I’d never learned to yodel, so that was tough! I think my yodelling skills are getting there," she says. "As a debut, this is huge; it’s such an important show to so many people and everyone has their own idea of who Maria should be. I just want to make it my own."

Lucy, who stars opposite former Coronation Street actor Gray O'Brien in The Sound of Music, is also turning her sights to a singing career, and has signed with Island Records.

"While I was still in the audition process for Maria I started recording an album. It will go on hold for a bit while I’m on tour, but on my days off I’ll be doing promotional work for the album. I’ve got a busy year ahead!"

* The Sound of Music runs at the Alhambra from February 16-20. Call 01274 432000 for tickets.