“It was always clear. I felt I lived with this innate spark for music,” she recounted.
After studying piano, flute and saxophone, she instinctively decided to pursue bel canto at the age of 13. Stillman’s interest in opera and ancient arias, although unusual for her age, was already irrefutable.
“While others were choosing pop songs, I was performing ancient melodies,” she continued.
After studying at the University of Melbourne, Stillman went to London to study with renowned soprano Yvonne Kenny, and then at the Wales International Academy of Voice, directed by equally renowned tenor Dennis O’Neill.
“I was often performing in Germany, and that’s where I started my operatic career, but something always brought me back to Italy,” Stillman explained.
“My dream was to stay there, in that wonderful country where opera music has great power and an extraordinarily unique history.”
Years later, Stillman would embark on a courageous move to Todi, Umbria. Her parents decided to tag along, buying a house in the enchanting hill town in the province of Perugia.
“They were on vacation when they fell hopelessly in love with it,” she said. “I felt exceptionally lucky, I had fulfilled an immense desire and could finally let myself be lulled by the Italian musical tradition to which I had always aspired.”
During the pandemic, Stillman found herself in Kenya, where she had gone to visit her brother who had married a local girl. Her father had extensively described to her the extreme poverty, persecution and war from which so many families fled to take their children to safety.
The soprano then decided to respond to the emergency using the only means at her disposal: the power of music.
After involving a group of colleagues from an opera house in Germany and writing to a hundred or so welfare centres and orphanages, the singer found in Sister Mary Killeen, of Irish descent, a trustworthy travel companion. Stillman then founded OperAffinity, a non-profit organisation that aims to conduct music workshops for children in impoverished areas of Kenya.
At the Mukuru Promotional Centre and the Isiolo Welfare Centre, Stillman, accompanied by her skilled team of volunteers, has already been able to entertain and interact with more than 6000 children.
“We have spent every day with those living in the slums of Kenya and the enthusiasm of the little ones is always so inspiring. Somehow, we feel we have brought joy into their lives and opened their minds to something new,” she recounted movingly.
“This experience has really changed my life. I had sung professionally, but I had never understood the extraordinary impact of opera.”
A musical class of OperAffinity in Nairobi, Kenya
The soprano then registered the charity in England and Italy, and from her new home in Todi began working with embassies to turn classical music “into a wonderful therapy”.
In Umbria, she initiated a music program designed for local youth orchestras, culminating in a special concert featuring more than 150 local talents and even a few Australian professionals. Furthermore, in Rome, under the patronage of the Holy See, Stillman initiated several interactive seminars dedicated exclusively to the country’s large number of refugees.
In September the soprano will inaugurate a new programme to bring exceptionally talented young opera singers to Todi and allow them to work with teachers from La Scala, Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, the Royal Opera House in London and the NY Opera Company, among others.
“The community has given me this beautiful space in the main square. I will place a piano and leave the doors open. Citizens and tourists will be able to come in and sit comfortably to listen to our opera singers,” she explained.
Deeply honoured to participate in the special concert organised to commemorate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Australia, Breana Stillman decided to share the unique opportunity with one of her students from Kenya. Accompanied by a talented quartet of musicians, surrounded by the pictorial splendour of the Gonlafone Oratory, the two performed a moving Panis Angelicus.
“It was his first trip abroad, a real experience for him. And it was heartwarming to see how he had blossomed musically,” she shared.
“Being an opera singer taught me so much about emotions and connecting with others. And even though for many people opera seems to be a dying art form, in the end it really can break down all cultural barriers. No matter where you come from, music really is a universal language.”
