What Opera Singers Taught Us About Breathing During COVID—and Why It Still Matters Today

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, The New York Times published an article titled “How Opera Singers Are Helping Covid Patients Recover.” I remember reading it and thinking, Finally—someone is talking about this.

While music therapy itself is nothing new, anyone who has experienced COVID, long COVID, or even a severe upper respiratory infection understands the quiet panic that can set in when breathing suddenly becomes difficult. We move through our days assuming breath will always be there, until something interferes with it. Only then do we realize how deeply breath is woven into every moment of our physical and emotional lives.

During that period, I was frequently asked how I’m able to sustain long phrases and hold notes with apparent ease. The answer surprised many people: the same breathing exercises I use to refine my singing, and the same techniques I teach my voice students, are precisely the tools that recovering COVID patients were being encouraged to practice daily.

In my voice studio, breathing is always the first thing we address. Before repertoire, before language diction, before any technical detail, we focus on breath. It is the foundation that supports everything else. When breath is aligned correctly, students often feel immediate results—not just vocally, but physically and mentally. There is a noticeable sense of calm, grounding, and clarity that comes from learning how to breathe with intention.

This is one of the reasons singing lessons are not just for singers.

Vocal training offers a form of therapy that is difficult to replicate elsewhere. Over the years, I’ve worked with people whose primary goal was not performance at all, but lung expansion, relaxation, or recovery from previous respiratory injuries. In those moments, the voice becomes less about sound and more about healing—about reconnecting the body and mind through breath.

Now, years removed from the height of the pandemic, we are still living with its aftereffects. Many people continue to experience respiratory challenges, anxiety around breathing, or a lingering sense of physical imbalance. The lessons we learned during that time remain just as valuable today.

If this resonates with you, I invite you to continue following along for more insights on singing, breath, and vocal wellness. Together, we can explore how intentional breathing and vocal work can help restore balance—both in the body and the mind.

~♕