English National Opera Teaches Singing Therapy To Covid Patients

The English National Opera (ENO) and Imperial College Healthcare teams have launched ENO Breathe, a breathing and wellbeing programme for people recovering from the effects of Covid-19.

The programme focuses on breathing retraining through singing in the hope of assisting people who are still suffering from breathlessness and associated anxiety.

No prior experience or interest in singing is required to take part in ENO Breathe – it is not a choir or singing group. It is a social prescribing (non-clinical) intervention that uses singing techniques to aid recovery from Covid-19.

Lullabies are used as a way into exercises throughout the six weeks on the programme, as they are expressly designed to calm and soothe, and have the benefit of being short, memorable and accessible to all.

“Singing lullabies builds emotional connections with the other activities and exercises on the programme. Participants leave sessions with a calming song in their hearts – and crucially – this creates a positive emotional connection to a wealth of tools and exercises to help manage their symptoms, making these exercises more memorable, more meaningful and more usable,” said Suzi Zumpe, singing specialist and creative director of ENO Breathe.

ENO’s mission is that English National Opera exists for everyone, and they seek to create new experiences with opera that inspires, nurtures creativity and makes a difference.

“We take a fresh inspiring approach to opera to reflect the diversity of our culture,” reads ENO's mission statement. “At ENO, we believe that opera is a living art form able to connect to people from all parts of our society.”

ENO Breathe offers participants an initial one-to-one online conversation with a member of the ENO Breathe team to discuss the practicalities of the programme and what the participant hopes to achieve, and six weekly group online workshop sessions led by an ENO vocal specialist.

Workshops will encourage participants to take part in exercises and activities especially designed to support breathing control, providing tools for self-management of breath and anxiety.

Taking part also gives participants access to bespoke online digital resources designed to support them between sessions. These include exercises, song sheets and audio and video materials, especially recorded by the ENO for participants on the programme.

In October and November 2020, ENO Breathe ran its first pilot sessions of ENO Breathe with a small cohort of participants.

Participants ranged from those in their 30s to their 70s, and were 41% ethnically diverse. For 25% of the group, English was not their first language and 20% expressed concern at the start of the programme that singing was ‘not for them’.

The outcome of the pilot was overwhelmingly positive, with 90% of participants stating that they perceive ENO Breathe to have had either “positive” or “strong positive” impact on their breathlessness, and 91% stating that the programme had “positive” or “strong positive” impact on their anxiety levels.

Find out how to access ENO Breathe here.