A glorious collision of storytelling, opera, virtuoso singing, inspiration, and playful audience interaction
When soprano Katy Lees was given months to live, she defiantly replied: ‘Fine. I’ll have 600.’
But Katy had to decide: even if she lived, would she ever sing again?
Originally performed in sell-out shows at south London’s Lantern Arts Centre, Breathe is a captivating one-woman theatre show created and performed by Katy Lees — one of the UK’s longest-living survivors of mesothelioma — and co-written/directed by Amy Phillips.
Twenty years on from her terminal cancer diagnosis and miraculous recovery, Katy tells her compelling story, drawing on five operatic arias by composers Puccini, Mozart, Verdi, Bellini and Bernstein — the music that rescued her. Told with humour and unflinching honesty, the show traces how singing became a way for Katy to give shape to overwhelming emotion — fear, rage, tenderness and joy — when language alone was not enough. A way back to life.
If you’ve always thought of opera as purely an elite art form, think again. Breathe reframes opera as something immediate, shared and deeply human. Katy challenges our preconceptions of ‘beautiful voices’ as something exclusive and out of reach. Instead, she playfully encourages us to see the power of singing to connect us to ourselves, as well as each other.
The arias, sung by Katy herself, form the spine of the performance, which weaves opera with spoken storytelling and intimate recorded voiceovers from family members, punctuating her story with heartbreaking reality and tenderness.
Katy’s extraordinary theatre debut is a show for anyone who has ever had to keep going when giving up felt easier. Breathe will tear you apart and put you back together again, with renewed faith in the compassion of human nature.
Breathe Team
KATY LEES — PERFORMER/CO-WRITER
Katy Lees is a singer, singing teacher and choir director. As a singer she toured extensively in Europe, North America and the UK.
After cancer diagnosis and treatment interrupted her career in 2006, she realised that her true vocation lay in helping others to discover their own potential and love for music and singing.
In true reciprocity, seeing others enjoy their singing encouraged Katy to explore singing and performing again. She started studying with Charlotte Xerri at Voice Your Potential and with Amy Phillips at First Act.
Breathe is a culmination of what she has learned over the last 20 years and is dedicated to anyone trying to make lemonade out of lemons.
AMY PHILLIPS — DIRECTOR/CO-WRITER
Amy Phillips is the Artistic Director of the Lantern Arts Centre in south west London.
Her LAC directing credits include Hey Kid. Hey Goat (also Riverside Studios), Sister Act, Blue Stockings, Hay Fever, Our Town and Harvey. Also pantomimes Jack & the Beanstalk and Rapunzel, which she also wrote.
Before she began directing, Amy worked for 25 years as a professional actress, after making her television debut in the BBC children’s drama Grange Hill.
Amy is delighted to be working with Katy, a singer she has long admired.
