Aria unhappy? Here's the opera website that could help
One Tuesday morning, I am talking to someone via videoconferencing, like so many of us do now. I am even sharing very personal thoughts and feelings with him, as a fair few of us have done this year too. But then something happens which is rare, even in these weird times: the man, a tenor named David, starts singing an aria to me – specifically Ombra mai fu, the famous “Largo” from Handel’s Xerxes. The song lasts about two minutes; the whole encounter just 17. And yet the experience is one of the most profound experiences I will have all year. The name of the initiative behind it seems true: Opera Helps.
The premise of this charity, dreamt up by the London-based artist Joshua Sofaer, is simple. If you have a problem, you can confide it to a professional singer, who will listen to you and then, based on your testimony, sing you something from the canon. The aim is to help you see your worries with fresh eyes, and alleviate them where possible.
It is not professional therapy, Sofaer emphasises when we speak afterwards, but it is music “operating in a therapeutic way”. And in a moment where many are feeling particularly isolated or anxious, its appeal seems obvious. “What I’ve been shocked by is the level to which people consider it to have helped,” says Sofaer via Zoom. “Somebody left a comment on my YouTube page just this morning, saying, ‘It’s completely changed how I reflect on the problem.’ ”
Opera Helps was set up by Sofaer in 2016. Back then, the premise was that the singer would turn up at the listener’s house, and serenade them in person. “The feedback was incredible,” says Sofaer. “People would be thrown back in their seats by the volume in their front rooms.”
Lockdown made Sofaer’s team wonder if they could do it online; in fact, the very nature of the project made it eligible for Arts Council England’s emergency funds. “We can employ singers [six at the moment], who desperately need to be employed at the minute, and we can reach people who are isolated in lockdown.” Sessions are free, but when you book in online, you are also asked to donate an amount of your choice via PayPal, which really helps, says Sofaer. “It’s quite expensive per person, because you have to pay the singer and the person administering the set-up.”
Whatever the medium, the fundamental requirement is that you come with a genuine problem. Opera is a high-stakes, high-emotion art after all. Sofaer reports the moving story of a couple who elected to do it together when the husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer; he can’t report exact details, since the sessions are usually confidential, but says that their daughter got in touch to say the experience was “fundamental” in helping them face his passing. “Opera just cuts through so much, and gets straight to the emotional core.”
All of which comes to explain how I end up with my own session with David. I decided I wanted to explore a lack of confidence, which has long seeped into both my professional and personal lives, and stopped me from making bolder decisions. This is what I relay to David when he calls me on Google Duo (apparently it has better audio qualities).
David, a calm presence, asks me neutral, prodding questions, but is careful to not enter into anything bordering therapy: he just lets me talk. He then tells me he has decided to sing Ombra mai fu, and explains why. In this famous aria, Handel’s titular Persian king enjoys a moment of pause and contemplation before the struggles ahead. Granted, he would like to conquer Europe – I’m more wondering about the men I date. But we each have our own struggles, I suppose.
When the chords of the aria start up, I first think: I know this one, and luckily I love Handel. (Sofaer tells me a lot of people get 19th-century fare, especially Puccini, “because it’s very immediately emotional”.) Then comes a deeper recognition, an emotional one, as the chords speak to a mood which is hard to describe in words. To my own surprise, I even experience a chill up the top of my back, which I know is often a prelude to crying.
However, I don’t cry – I smile. And not in an awkward giggly way (which I was worried I would do), but a genuine smile of gratitude. When was the last time anyone ever sang directly to me like that, and with such heart? When my parents sang me to sleep?
It’s making me link the two together, consciously, that is what makes the experience so special, says Sofaer. “By forefronting the person’s problem in the first place, you make the musical experience more intense – because people have a deeper personal connection to the music.” And it is therapeutic, even if it’s not therapy, which requires much more investment on both sides, confirms Hilda Burke, psychotherapist, couples counsellor and author of The Phone Addiction Workbook. Yet some basic parameters remain the same.
“Ultimately, with the therapeutic process, a lot of it is about being paid attention to – about being looked at and engaged with,” she points out. What’s more, using music in this way is helpful because it is a way of “bypassing the mind” – getting past unhelpful thought patterns. “These can really hold us back from healing and from trying new things and being more creative. This [Opera Helps] may not be everything you need to do to heal, but it can be a really important component of the healing process.”
After my session, I listen to the Largo on my own again, on Spotify. If it isn’t quite the same sensation as direct serenading, it has at least given me something to anchor my predicament in. And it also reminds me of something which classical music seems especially good at: that many before have felt the same mood as me, and many more will do again.
For more information, visit operahelps.com
