Operatic Housecalls I LOVE THIS IDEA

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/mar/27/home-therapy-opera-singers-anxious-stressed-ease-worries

Anxious? Stressed? A new art project sends singers to people’s homes to ease their worries. Would an intimate performance help our writer deal with his fears about impending fatherhood?
Opera singer Caroline Kennedy sings to Tim Jonze.

Tim Jonze
@timjonze

Sunday 27 March 2016 11.00 EDT Last modified on Sunday 27 March 2016 19.05 EDT

The soprano reaches a dramatic climax, demonstrating impressive lung power as she sustains the dizzying peak note, before bringing Quando me’n’ vo’ to its close. It is a powerful, emotionally draining performance, and one that seems to resonate around the room for some time after she has finished. Which is why I get up off the sofa and ask her if she would like a cup of tea.

This, as you might have guessed, is not your typical night at the opera – and not only because it’s only just gone 11am. It is called Opera Helps, and is a project dreamed up by the artist Joshua Sofaer. The gist is this: contact the Opera Helps phoneline with a personal problem, and they will endeavour to send a singer to your house. Said singer will briefly discuss the issue with you, select a suitable aria that addresses it, then perform it for you while you relax in familiar surroundings: on a comfortable chair, for instance, or even in bed.

It’s not therapy as such – in fact, they are very keen to stress that their singers are not trained therapists – but the project does aim to help you look at your problem from a new perspective and, hopefully, experience the healing power of music.

“It’s about giving someone the space for reflection, the same way having a chat with a friend might give you fortitude to carry on,” says Sofaer, who found success running the project in Sweden before bringing it to the UK. “I remember one woman contacted us because her husband had a terminal illness and she wanted a shared experience that might help her cope with his passing. That was pretty intense, but the feedback she gave us was really moving – it gave her a strength and a space to focus and cope with bereavement.”

Sofaer’s own opera journey also came about in an unusual way: he was working as a barman at the London Coliseum, and would sometimes catch the English National Opera performing during his shift. He found himself “bitten” by the opera bug, but also aware that this music was not accessible to a lot of people.

‘My front room transforms itself the second Caroline puts on a backing track …’ Photograph: David Bebber for the Guardian

“Opera Helps is offering people a way in,” he says. “In my experience, you either respond to the music or you don’t – I don’t think it is based on your musical education or what class you’re from or how much money you’ve got, which is the common perception. The idea that opera needs an expert audience is a complete misnomer.”

This comes as a relief to me, given that my knowledge of opera is roughly equivalent to my knowledge of the economic forecast for Liechtenstein. It is not supposed to an exam, so I focus on finding a suitable problem for Caroline, my assigned singer, to deal with.

Aware that I can’t have a trained opera professional travel all the way to my house just to reassure me about my car boot’s lock mechanism (unable to open on a cold day – genuinely quite annoying), I opt for one of life’s big themes instead: impending fatherhood. It’s not a problem as such – I definitely want to be a dad, honest! – but anything that plunges you so deeply into the unknown is likely to provide various nagging anxieties ranging from “what happens to all my freedom?” to “how many times am I allowed to drop it before social services arrive?”

Our session begins with a few minutes of chat about the issue, in which I waffle semi-coherently about various baby-related fears. Then it’s over to Caroline to try to offer musical balm. I have no idea what to expect: is there an aria about a man who immediately drops his firstborn on the hospital floor? Did Verdi ever score a stirring ode to reassure someone that they will still be able to watch five back-to-back episodes of Don’t Tell the Bride in their jogging pants? Turns out, probably not. Instead, Caroline takes a broad approach. She identifies that my worries seem to stem from a general lack of confidence, and prescribes Quando me’n vo’ from Puccini’s La Bohème from her menu of musical remedies. It is an aria in which the singer Musetta boldly asserts her desirability in order to win back the painter Marcello’s affections, but given that the words are in Italian, what is really important is the emotional impact of the music.

And that certainly comes across. There is something dramatic about the way my front room transforms itself the second Caroline puts on a backing track from her portable speaker and launches into crystal-clear song. The whole experience is extremely intimate – not just because of where it is taking place, and the subject matter at hand, but also, I realise, because there is something almost primeval about the way an opera singer’s voice cuts through and connects with the human soul.

But does it help me with my problem? Certainly, fatherhood issues have never been further from my mind, although I suspect that has less to do with the healing power of opera and more to do with the fact my head is full of new thoughts, such as: “Well, this is certainly weird,” and “I wonder how long before my neighbours try to have me evicted?”

As an art project, the whole thing is enjoyably surreal, an unusual combination of the stirring and the awkward. But as a way to deal with your problems, that probably depends on what works for you as an individual. As Sofaer says after the session, the process is probably quite self-selecting: if you’re the sort of person who calls an opera helpline, it is probably because you think someone singing you a personal aria is going to be of some benefit. Certainly, you can’t argue with his feedback rate – he says around 70% of participants in Sweden sent back response cards, all of them effusive.

It is a response Sofaer anticipated, because opera is something that has affected him positively, too.

“It is a privilege getting to work with people who have trained their voice in this way,” he says. “The power of hearing one other human being, where all they’ve really got is themselves … that’s something I find very emotionally affecting.”