Much staff discussion and laughter erupted in the halls of a Toronto hospital while this writer awaited day surgery. Shortly thereafter, bouts of singing and more laughter filtered in from an outpatient waiting room.
What gives?
No answer was forthcoming until a post-op evaluation a week later, attended by this writer, who found himself in the waiting room at the same time as a cheerful, irrepressible, singer-patient embellished his conversation and chair hopping with bursts of song. He was no pro, but not bad either — good amateur choir standard.
No doubt the heart of the odd mortified patient shrank inwardly as they found themselves singled out for a personalized snatch of song. But even those folks made a good show of it in a waiting room brimming with amusement and laughter.
All of which made the following article catch the eye, by way of a well-known and usually inaccurately quoted snatch of 18th century poetry attributed to William Congreve: Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
Its correct version (with breast and not beast) captures more the spirit of music’s healing powers. We were not exactly a collection of strange beasts as we sat waiting to go under the knife or to hear about the success of recent surgery. But we were all undoubtedly, harbouring a catalogue of silent worries and fears in our breasts.
All of which struck a chord upon encountering an unexpected, and on its initial encounter quite possibly silly, story conflating well-being, opera and rough sleeping.
Read more at the BBC: ‘How opera changed my life after homelessness’
