I will survive
Cyprus’ petite opera singer was moved to study the art after watching a performance of Carmen. After surviving breast cancer last year she is now as busy as ever
Most of the comments placed by fans of Greek Cypriot opera singer Marilena Solomou under her Youtube videos say the same thing: “great voice, beautiful arrangements and an even more beautiful woman”. The singer appears on these films attractively dressed, sometimes with long black hair, sometimes with very short. And yes, I agree, Solomou is very sexy and yes she does have a wonderful voice. But when I meet her for the first time over a cup of coffee in Nicosia I am struck by two other factors. One – for an opera singer Solomou is amazingly petite; and two – with her new blonde short hair she looks so very much like Kylie Minogue. Shouldn’t she be fatter, I ask directly (you know, the myth of a fat soprano) and she admits that her teacher tells her that all the time.
“She says I should put some weight on to have more support but I don’t believe that by putting on weight I will sing any better,” she laughs. “I do my Pilates and yoga and I am fit. What really matters in singing is breathing and stamina and because when I was younger I used to do a lot of dancing and ballet and I exercise every day I feel I can cope.”
I sit opposite Solomou admiring her luminous skin, and try to sum up everything I know about her. I know that last month she had a charity concert together with another soprano at PASYDY organised by Europa Donna Cyprus (a member of Europa Donna, the European Breast Cancer Coalition) and that in June last year her CD For A Lifetime, produced with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, became the best selling album produced on the island and that in October she was nominated for the “Woman of the Year 2006” award in the singers’ category… And I also know one more thing. The reason behind Solomou’s involvement with Donna Cyprus is not just due to a firm belief that one should support various charities as much as possible (most of the singer’s concerts were organised to help worthy causes). She herself is a breast cancer survivor.
And breast cancer is even a topic she has been trained to speak about. Last November she was sent by Donna Cyprus to Milan for a four-day advocacy for breast cancer training course. “Many women in Cyprus are afraid of talking about the illness,” she says. “They associate cancer with dying. It is wrong. I know how difficult it is and want to help other women to go through it. I want to let them know that being diagnosed with cancer doesn’t mean the end of the world and that time passes quicker and you feel better when you lead your life as normally as possible. And that you should talk about it with your family and friends a lot because it helps.”
Solomou was diagnosed with cancer last year just a day before her son’s first birthday. She was again pregnant at the time again and found a lump on her breast so she went to check it out. The results were bad. It was not only that she had cancer, it was aggressive, spreading quickly around and already at the third stage. She had to have an abortion, be operated on as soon as possible and afterwards undergo very strong chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
“I was terrified,” she says. “I was devastated. I found out on February 27 and the next day we were to have my son’s party and on March 1 it was the launch of my CD – they were two events I was really looking forward to and didn’t want to cancel. I did the birthday party next day and told nobody, even my parents didn’t know. And the next day although I was running around with my husband all day, from the oncology centre to my doctor, etc, I was thinking all the time ‘I have to go and rehearse’ because the launch was at a small bar at the Hilton Park Hotel and I was planning to sing a couple of songs from my CD so I had to check the acoustics. At certain point I told my husband ‘we should take a break now and go to the hotel to check the sound,’ and that was a kind of a relief for me – I had to do it because it kept my mind distracted from the whole situation, and I really enjoyed the event and being there.”
I try to imagine what I would do if I was put by fate in a position similar to Marilena’s and tell her I would probably lock myself in the bedroom for a week to cry and in the process try to gather strength but she disagrees. “I wouldn’t want for one moment to be secluded and sit in my room and cry my eyes out,” she says. “The only time I cried was at the very beginning, just before the birthday party, when I was getting ready and suddenly caught myself crying because I guess I had to cry at a certain point. But I have never thought about dying. For me having breast cancer and dying are quite apart. When they told me my first thought was chemotherapy and that it means no hair and all the other bad things that chemotherapy brings. But not dying.”
Marilena was operated on in the UK (“I didn’t really care about the mastectomy. I just wanted to get this thing out of me”) and came back to Cyprus for six months of chemotherapy followed by two months of radiotherapy. She lost all her hair (“As soon as it started falling out I just had it shaved off completely”) but says she never allowed herself to feel sorry for herself.
“I think the fact I had a small kid made me stronger because I wanted to be able to do things with my son. It was only the first two days after the chemotherapy that I was a little bit weak and sick. After that I was back on my feet. I went with Michalis to the park and went shopping with him, I sang and I continued my Pilates and yoga. I just tried to enjoy every minute of my life as much as I could.”
At present she is still going through hormonal therapy, will be on medication for the next five years and has regular medical check-ups every three months. But although she admits that “you never know, this thing might come back” she tries to live as if it is all far behind her.
“Now I just think ‘oh my God, what happened to me last year? How did I manage to cope? I must have been very strong. But at that time I just had this amazing power to live.’”
Cancer Support Group of Paphos Gala Dinner
With performance by Marilena Solomou an UK tenor Martin Toal and violinist Craig Owen. October 26, 2007. 19.30 fro 20.00. Coral Beach Hotel. Tickets: £32 including five-course meal and wine. Tickets from: 22 881000, 26 938017, 26 654007. [email protected]
Marilena Solomou’s CV
Marilena Solomou was born in Pretoria in 1973 to Cypriot parents. She always liked to dance and sing, and started playing piano at the age of five. The family came back to Cyprus when she was six so she went to school here and later went to the UK to study music at the Anglia Polytechnic University in Cambridge. There, apart from continuing to study piano, she began to take singing lessons (“I decided I wanted to sing when I went to see Carmen. I just knew this was what I wanted to do. I was 20.”).
After she came back to Cyprus in 1998 she found herself a job as a music teacher and kept on singing, taking classes with a number of teachers. For the last four years she has been studying with Italian soprano Tiziana Sojat and also attends master classes run by such famous voices as Susan Owen-Leinert, Ileana Cotrubas and Rosalinda Plowright.
She is a lyric soprano and her repertoire includes arias from Faust, Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Fledermaus, Don Pasquale, La Boheme, Il Barbiere di Seviglia, L’elisir d’amor, German and French songs and songs from musicals such as My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Phantom of the Opera, Cabaret and Chicago. She also runs her own Akropolis Music Academy.
Breast Cancer
Worldwide, breast cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer deaths (after lung, stomach, liver and colon cancer). In 200
5, breast cancer caused 502,000 deaths (seven per cent of cancer deaths; almost one per cent of all deaths) worldwide. The number of cases has significantly increased since the 1970s, a phenomenon partly blamed on modern lifestyles in the Western world.
Famous women who had breast cancer
Brigitte Bardot (1934 – present) former French actress and current animal rights activist
Ingrid Bergman (1915 – 1982) Oscar-winning star Swedish actress; died at age 67
Shirley Temple Black (1926 – present) famous Oscar-winning American child star and former US Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia, diagnosed in 1972 at age 46
Bette Davis (1908 – 1989) American Oscar-winning star actress; died at age 81, diagnosed in 1985 at age 77
Marianne Faithfull (1946 – present) British singer/actress, Mick Jagger’s ex-girlfriend, diagnosed in 2006 at age 59
Betty Ford (1918 – present) former First Lady of the United States, founder of the Betty Ford Center and wife of former President Gerald Ford, diagnosed in 1974 at age 56
Lady Linda McCartney (1941 – 1998) American singer, activist, wife of former British Beatles member, Sir Paul McCartney; died at age 56, diagnosed in 1995 at age 53
Kylie Minogue (1968 – present) Australian singer, actress diagnosed in 2005 at age 36
Olivia Newton-John (1948 – present) UK/Australian singer/actress diagnosed in 1992 at age 44
Nancy Reagan (1921 – present) former First Lady of the United States and wife of former President Ronald Reagan, diagnosed in 1987 at age 66
Dusty Springfield (1939 – 1999) British songwriter/singer; died at age 59, diagnosed in 1994 at age 54
Koo Stark (1956 – present) American soft-porn actress who had a controversial relationship with the UK’s Prince Andrew; founded Keep A Breast cancer organisation, diagnosed in 2002 at age 46
