LONDON – On a recent afternoon, singing coach Suzi Zumpe was warming up with a student. First, she straightened her spine and widened her chest, and embarked on a series of breathing exercises, expelling short, sharp bursts of air. Then she put her voice into action, producing a resonant buzz that started loudly in an almost squeak, before sinking and rising again. Finally, she showed her tongue, as if disgusted: a workout for the facial muscles.
The student, Wayne Cameron, repeated everything step by step. “Great, Wayne, great,” said Zumpe approvingly. “But I think you can give me further language in that last part. “
Although the class was being conducted via Zoom, it looked like those Zumpe usually leads at the Royal Academy of Music, or Garsington Opera, where she trains young singers.
But Cameron, 56, is not a singer; he manages storage logistics for an office supply company. The session was prescribed by doctors as part of his recovery plan after a beating experience with Covid-19 last March.
Called ENO Breathe and developed by English National Opera in collaboration with a London hospital, the six-week program offers patients personalized singing lessons: clinically proven recovery exercises, but reworked by professional singing tutors and taught online.
Although few cultural organizations have escaped the consequences of the pandemic, opera companies have been hit particularly hard. In Britain, many have been unable to perform before live audiences for almost a year. While some theaters and concert halls managed to reopen last fall for socially distant concerts between closings, many opera producers have simply blacked out.
But English National Opera, one of the two leading British companies, has been trying to redirect its energies. Early on, its educational team stepped up its activities and the wardrobe department manufactured protective equipment for hospitals during an initial shortage across the country. Last September, the company offered a “drive-in opera experience”, presenting a short presentation of Puccini’s “La Bohème”, broadcast on big screens in a London park. That same month, he started testing the medical program.
In a video interview, Jenny Mollica, who directs the English National Opera’s outreach work, explained that the idea had developed last summer, when cases of “Long Covid” started to emerge: people who recovered from the acute phase of disease, but still suffer effects including chest pain, fatigue, brain fog and shortness of breath.
“Opera is rooted in the breath,” said Mollica. “This is our specialty. I thought, ‘Maybe ENO has something to offer.’ “
Tentatively, she contacted Dr. Sarah Elkin, a breathing specialist at one of the country’s largest public hospital chains, the Imperial College NHS Trust. It turned out that Elkin and his team were also racking their brains about how to treat these patients in the long term.
“With shortness of breath, it can be very difficult,” explained Elkin in an interview, noting how few treatments there are for Covid and how the side effects of the disease were still poorly understood. “After examining the possibilities of drug treatments, you feel like you don’t have much to give people.”
Elkin used to sing jazz alone; she felt that vocal training can help. “Why not?” she said.
Twelve patients were initially recruited. After an individual consultation with a vocal specialist to discuss their experience with Covid-19, they participated in weekly group sessions, conducted online. Zumpe started with basic principles like posture and breathing control before guiding participants through short humming and singing sounds, testing them in class and encouraging them to practice at home.
The aim was to encourage them to take full advantage of their lung capacity, which the disease had impaired in some cases, but also to teach them how to breathe calmly and deal with anxiety – a problem for many people working with Covid long time.
When Cameron was asked if he wanted to come in, he was perplexed, he said, “I thought, ‘Am I going to be the next Pavarotti?'”
But Covid-19 left him feeling mistreated, he said; after he was discharged from the hospital, he had to make several visits to the emergency room and was prescribed months of follow-up treatment for blood clots and breathing problems. “Everything I did, I was struggling to breathe,” he said.
He added that even a few simple breathing exercises quickly made a big difference. “The program really helps,” he said. “Physically, mentally, in terms of anxiety.”
Almost as important, he added, was being able to share a virtual space and exchange stories with other victims. “I felt connected,” he said.
Along with the weekly classes, he and the other participants had access to online resources, including downloadable scores, update videos – filmed on the main stage of the English National Opera – and soothing Spotify playlists.
For the singing element, tutors came up with the idea of using lullabies taken from cultures around the world – partly because they are easy to master, said Zumpe, partly because they are soothing. “We want to build an emotional connection through music, make it enjoyable,” she said. “It’s not just physical.”
And how was Cameron singing now? He laughed. “I’m more in tune,” he said. The program helped him achieve high notes while singing in the car, he added. “Once you learn the technique, you can manage it much better,” he said.
Elkin said other participants also reported positive effects, and she commissioned a randomized trial to deepen clinical understanding – not least because it would help convince colleagues in doubt about complementary therapies and so-called “social prescription”.
“Some people think it’s a little touchy,” she said. “They want evidence.”
However, the program is being expanded to post-Covid clinics in other parts of England, supported by charitable donations and free to anyone referred by a doctor. The goal is to receive up to 1,000 people in the next phase, the opera company said in a statement.
It wasn’t just the patients and doctors who benefited, Mollica said: ENO Breathe also gave the company’s musicians and producers something to focus on during a dark period. “Everyone found it very motivating,” she said. “It is fantastic to realize that this skill set we have is useful.”
Although Cameron had not regained full health, he said, he had recently had a snowball fight with his daughter, a level of effort that would have been unthinkable a few months earlier. “I have a lot more confidence than I had,” he said. “That dark feeling is gone.”
He added that the program also did something extremely valuable: it taught him how to breathe. “Until Covid, I considered breathing to be natural,” he said. “So it’s a blessing, in a way.”