Show name: Breathe: 5 Arias That Saved My Life
Performer: Katy Lees
Venue: The Hepburn Suite at The Royal Scots Club (Venue 241)
Date seen: 18th August 2026
Fringe run: Until 22nd August 2026
Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5
Reviewers: H. Bunch and G. Bronfman
The description of this work on the Fringe website provides an accurate summary and introduction to prepare the audience. Soprano Katy Lees presents the arc of an incredible story: how she discovered she had cancer at the age of 32, with two small children, was given just a few months to live, and then began her journey through treatment and recovery.
Bunch’s review:
As a casual listener of opera, I can usually hear the emotions and beauty conveyed by amazing opera singers, typically performing in a language I do not understand or telling a story I am unfamiliar with. It is a completely different experience witnessing Lees’ performance.
She describes the rage and anger she felt when confronted with a diagnosis of near-certain death and the potential loss of her world and family, before explaining how a particular aria expressed those feelings and then singing that aria to the audience. My internal reaction while listening to her sing was, “Wow, I can feel that pain.”
The show presents the point where a painful turn in her own life met her art, and that experience is now offered to us through her performance.
Through a combination of personal narrative, recordings from her friends and family, and her own singing, Lees takes the audience on a journey through every stage of her painful experience: diagnosis, chemotherapy, remission, the return of the cancer and, ultimately, the blessing of 20 years of health.
Lees also presents, through her story and singing, the healing power of creative expression, visualisation, alternative medicine and, most importantly, the love of her family and community. Her story explores how, when the knowledge and healing power of modern medicine reached its limits, her own self-determination and optimism helped carry her forward. Lees quotes one doctor who told her during a desperate moment, “We can’t measure the healing power of faith.”
For me, the show is complete unto itself. Lees’ singing is artistically brilliant, while the show’s message is moving, educational and inspirational.
Bronfman adds:
I agree, as an opera and musical theatre devotee and performer. I see every show I physically can and study and practise all types of singing.
Singing is known to assist the body’s healing and is finally being acknowledged by American medical practitioners. The most important message for me was the role that rest, proper nutrition and visualisation, alongside supplemental and functional approaches, can play alongside conventional medicine. I have experienced this in my own life.
I loved learning about Katy Lees’ life, and her presentation and vocal artistry are masterful and worth your time, focus and attention. I hope to hear Katy Lees’ lovely voice again and again in the future.
If you like the artistry of opera and personal inspiration in one package, then Breathe: 5 Arias That Saved My Life is a great choice for you.
We happily think that Breathe: 5 Arias That Saved My Life deserves five stars.
★★★★★
