Francesca Chiejina: Opera saved my life
For Nigerian-American soprano Francesca Chiejina, the stage became a place to feel everything she was taught to hold back. Growing up, faith meant restraint and reflection. Opera offered the opposite, intensity, vulnerability, a kind of public release she calls a 'controlled scream'.
Now, she walks a fine line between letting go and holding it together, because, as she puts it, 'you can't bleed on stage every single time'.
