Reader Gijs sent me this today, with the note “I’ve never sent you anything to post about and I wouldn’t be offended if you didn’t post this. But I couldn’t think of a better audience to view this video than your audience. If this doesn’t bring a tear to one’s eye I don’t know what will.”
I think he’s right. The YouTube notes, apparently composed by the singer himself—Ambrož Bajec-Lapajne—say this:
I’m a professional opera, concert and choral singer that was diagnosed with a brain tumour (a GBM as it turned out). The neurosurgeon’s advice was to do an awake craniotomy so that I could sing during the surgery (on June13th 2014) in order to avoid deficits after the procedure. The music neuro team of the UMC in Utrecht was also involved in order to assist the surgery. There is no blood or exposed flesh in the video.I sing two (first and last) couplets of Schubert’s lied “Gute Nacht”: the minor – major transition in order to see if I can still recognise the key change. All is fine until min. 2:40 when things start to get very interesting… It’s been more than a year since and I’m doing fine, continuing my professional singing career.
The video:
It’s amazing: the guy is singing, and singing wonderfully, while they’re cutting a cancer out of his brain! (A “GBM” is a glioblastoma, a very serious form of brain cancer, so I’m extra glad that the guy is doing well.) Science!
More information from RT:
An opera singer from Slovenia was performing Schubert while undergoing a brain cancer surgery in a Dutch clinic, later posting the video from the operating room online.
The doctors at the University Medical Center Utrecht asked Ambroz Bajec-Lapajne to sing in order to monitor his ability to vocalize and recognize the key change during the brain tumor surgery.
The tenor opted for ‘Gute Nacht’ (Good Night) by Austrian 19th century composer, Franz Peter Schubert, performing the opening and the final couplets from the song.
The doctors were clearly impressed by the young man’s talent.
In the most dramatic moment of the video, Bajec-Lapajne stopped singing and appeared to be drifting away, but the tenor was able to restart his song from the beginning after a short break.
“I’m just a singer and tenor at that… I believe he rewired my brain for a while and that was the result. I could not control my tongue anymore and could not stop phonating. It was a very weird feeling,” the singer is cited by UPI.
An awake craniotomy was performed on Bajec-Lapajne in order to tackle GMB or Glioblastoma multiforme.
Beautiful. It’s one of my favourite lieder. It’s from Winterreise.
I can see why prayer would not have been as effective. Take that religion!
Amazing medical team.
Wow, what do they always say – It isn’t brain surgery. This time it is.
Still … not rocket science!
Thank you for sharing this. I’ll be sending it on to my daughter who is a critical care nurse. Wonderful singer. Wonderful medical team.
That was amazing! Talented tenor, talented team in theatre. So cool that he’s recovered well and is getting on with life.
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Fascinating. ( if I were asked to sing during an operation, I would clear the whole operating theater in one second flat!)
A stone deaf (or tone deaf) surgical team would be needed for me, too.
Not that I could remember enough of a song to actually do this.
Well, maybe some long-minibus-drive songs involving farmyard animals.
Unfortunately to those around me I remember lots of words to lots of songs….I’ve got a good enough ear to know that my singing sucks…
I have a great ear, but it stops short of my vocal chord.
I am part of a cast for a show every spring. I do comedy/dram parts but they also make me sing anyway.
LOL
You should just sing, Merilee! If everyone only limited themselves to doing things they are good at, where would we be?
Enjoying the doing of it is the point, I think.
Good point, Charles.
🎶
Toréadoréeeee don’t spit on the floooooor
🎶
Use the cuspidore; that’s what it’s for … !
Oh, I have to rely on the audience to tell me my singing sucks. Old boots, abuse, cobbles torn out of the road …
I was out to Perseid a couple of nights ago and going through town on bike at midnight. A silly girl in about 8cm high stiletto foot-torturers was trying to cross a section of road covered in cobbles. Most hilarious. Recommended, for discerning audiences.
Odlično, Mr. Bajec-Lapajne, odlično!
Wow! I don’t know what impressed me most – the patient’s courage or the care and tenderness of the medical staff. Watching this makes me proud to be human and reminds me of a book I read not too long ago. The book: ‘Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery’ (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Do-No-Harm-Stories-Surgery/dp/0297869876 ) is an autobiographical piece authored by a British neurosurgeon and is one of the best books I have read in years. If you are at all interested in the struggle between life and death and how a surgeon deals with this you won’t be disappointed. I would also highly recommend a documentary about the same doctor: ‘The English Surgeon’, which appears to be available on Netflix. The film features a Ukrainian patient who undergoes a similar procedure to the one featured in this post. However, due to a lack of drugs and a skilled anaesthetist the patient has to remain fully awake while the surgeons are sawing through his skull. It’s remarkable and uplifting.
“Watching this makes me proud to be human…”
That expresses it perfectly. Also, thanks for the book recommendation.
Not to detract from the skill of the surgical team in the slightest, but performing an “awake craniotomy” has been a common practice for decades. The point of the exercise is to be able to monitor when (if) they cut into working brain tissue while attempting to excise the tumour, because the visible difference between tumour and non-tumour material is slight.
You may have seen a “homunculus” – a mapping of the human body in terms of the brain surface (cortex) which is devoted to each part of the body. (The resemblance to Mick Jagger has long been noted.) The data that goes to make up that model has been acquired by performing many of these operations on conscious patients.
There’s some damned delicate sedation going on there. That, or the guy is incredible cool about having someone poking around in his head. I know there are no touch sensors in the brain itself, but you’d expect to feel some movement as they’re cutting various bits out of your brain. [Shudder]
A quick Google says no. No pain cells in the brain. Just at the meninges layer and of course the scalp and bone. So, relax, sit back, and hack away at you leisure.
I can remeber having gravel dug out of my forehead after a bike crash. Even with anaesthetic to numb the scalp sufficiently (I think they injected it near the appropriate cranial nerves), I could still tell what was going on in general terms from the pushing and prodding. And the sound of the gravel being dragged across the bone surface until it came free. Most disturbing,
I can believe it was very disturbing. There is a psychological aspect to the perception of pain. If you are used to extreme environments, you adjust and adapt to the levels of pain and accept it, to a degree. If you are used to living very comfortably and undisturbed, a minor knock can send you into a panic. Think of the rodeo cowboy vs the bank clerk. Or recruits before and after basic training. We all have expectations about what is tolerable pain. I have to confess, I cry a lot.
Strange to say, “disturbing” isn’t lethal in my experience. Actually, nothing is lethal, in my experience, but some things hurt.
Clearly they have his skull well clamped to prevent any movement during surgery. They don’t want that any more than he does.
In fact I wonder how much it cramped his singing style to have his head immobilized like that.
Not too much by the sound of him. 🎶
I agree he sounds pretty good, but for comparison, here he is performing without head restraints (or sedation).
It’s a bit like asking Yo Yo Ma to perform wearing a seat belt. I’m sure it would still sound great to us, but I doubt he’d be happy with the result.
Yes. In the normal performance there is a lot of body english. I’m thinking there has to be additional emotional expression in the voice when the body joins in.
I should think just singing while prone would be difficult–saliva wanting to run down the esophagus, etc.
Make that trachea.
Fantastic singing!!
I’m amazed he’s doing OK after a year; if you read up on glioblastoma, you’ll see that they usually recur, even with surgery, and the prognosis is 1-2 years of life before dying, usually from increased cranial pressure.
A friend in my writer’s group suffered this. Fortunately for his wife (also a member), he was able to maintain his personality. Often, as the disease progresses, it becomes more and more difficult to recognize the individual as the person you know. 🙁
Remarkably, there is a 5-year survival rate for GBM, and I think it’s higher than that for pancreatic cancer.
He probably also received full brain radiation which is very unpleasant as you need to have a device made that holds your head still – it usually covers your face. After, the patients are often dizzy or can’t walk. It’s just terrible.
Not to mention that the very idea is scary as hell!
Yes, when I read “it’s been a year” my heart sank.
A brave artist trying (successfully in the end) to preserve his reason for living, and a brave and dedicated medical team helping him to do just that. What a perfect blend of art and science, and a tribute to the best aspects of the human condition. This is also one of my favourite pieces of music, beautifully sung.
If I ever need an awake craniotomy, I want that nurse holding my hand.
Beautiful.
I would be scared witless. Or more witless. I know they would give sedation, but I don’t know if that would help with me. Watching this gave me a shiver.
I wonder if certain religious people would refuse to get brain surgery, since they believe the brain has nothing to do with the mind or self?
The wife like this, despite being very squeamish.
This song is not an operatic aria, it’s what we call German Lieder (German art song)!