The Opera Glasses Podcast

Soprano Soula Parassidis: Living Opera, Resilience, and Connection

• Elizabeth Bowman • Season 2 • Episode 5

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Greek-Canadian soprano Soula Parassidis joins us on The Opera Glasses podcast to talk about her organization, Living Opera, her Canadian debut in Montreal, and the international opera scene.

Soula, the driving force behind Living Opera, talks about how it all began—spoiler alert: the catalyst was her husband and Living Opera partner, Norman Reinhardt's journey overcoming performance anxiety. Living Opera offered a forum to share and invite performers to connect, feel heard, and learn from these experiences. The organization has grown into so much more since.

Soula's upcoming Canadian debut in Montreal on April 16 is a heartfelt convergence of her artistic journey and a testament to her resilience—overcoming cancer (years ago) and giving back through this performance—a fundraising event to raise funds for endometrial cancer. This episode paints a portrait of an artist not defined by her struggles, but empowered by them, using her voice to uplift others and channel art's healing power.

Join us for an episode that offers a glimpse behind the curtain and into the heart of an opera singer who believes in the transformative and accessible beauty of this timeless art form.

All episodes of The Opera Glasses podcast are hosted by Opera Canada Editor-In-Chief, Elizabeth Bowman. Follow Opera Canada on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Visit OperaCanada.ca for all of your Canadian Opera news and reviews.

Elizabeth Bowman:

Hi, I'm Elizabeth Bowman and this is the Opera Glasses podcast. Today, I have Greek-Canadian soprano o Parassidis as my guest. She is a multifaceted artist, an entrepreneur, a producer and the CEO of Living Opera. The catalyst for starting Living Opera was to talk about mental health struggles and, in particular, stage fright and overcoming it. They have grown into so much more. You can check them out at livingopera. org. Anyway, let's start the conversation with Soula. Soula, welcome to the Opera Glasses podcast. Thanks so much for being here. Oh, thank you for having me. It's an honor. So I think that many Canadians in our industry might not even know that you are Canadian, so I want to talk a bit about your background.

Soula Parassidis:

I put a Canadian flag in my Instagram bio. It's like right there, no, I'm from Canada. I mean, you know, what's really funny is I was born in Vancouver. I went to school in Vancouver. My mom's from Alberta I mean her mom is actually from Ireland, but I mean she grew up in Canada. My dad is Greek, but that's where I grew up.

Soula Parassidis:

But over the years so I have an American husband, I've spent a lot of time abroad and my accent is all mixed up. I was filming last week and I was hearing the playback and I was like who's that? What happened to your voice? It's pretty embarrassing. So what I think is really funny is when people find out I'm Canadian. Then they say, ah, yes, I hear a bit of an accent and I'm like, no, you don't. Right now, currently, I divide my time between Nashville, Tennessee, and Vienna, Austria, and then wherever there are gigs, and so it's all confused. But I grew up in the most beautiful it might be the most beautiful city in the world Vancouver, which spoiled me for life Because anywhere you go after.

Soula Parassidis:

That is sort of like oh no, those are nice mountains.

Elizabeth Bowman:

Oh, look at that lake Zurich. I'm just being honest. I hear you. I mean I've been to Vancouver. It's so amazing the access to outdoor activities is. You can't get that kind of metropolis with outdoor combination. It's unbelievable. I'm excited I'm going in June. I'm going to Banff. It's like the greatest place on earth.

Soula Parassidis:

Banff, you're stunning Just generally. There's like a lot of beautiful places in Canada. It's hard to beat.

Elizabeth Bowman:

I got to know more about living opera. I want to know how it started, what it is. Tell me, what happened, what it is, tell me what happened.

Soula Parassidis:

You know, I've been a singer. That's all I've ever done. I'm married to a singer, so it's like a very singer focused lifestyle that we've been leading for over 10 years. But my husband started to go through some pretty intense performance anxiety. Before it was cool to talk about mental health. Now it's like, yeah, talk about mental health. But like then it was like, oh my gosh, like we have to hide the fact that he's going through this. This is horrible. Like what do we do? It just sort of was a factor of like him kind of shooting up. Overnight.

Soula Parassidis:

He started singing a lot of productions with Cecilia Bartoli, who's amazing, but you know that really put the spotlight on him in a way that had never happened before, and I was sort of there trying to support him as his partner, but I was like, oh my gosh, you know, his brain is getting broken. Like I don't, I don't know what to do, and we've spoken about this a lot on our YouTube channel and social media and other things that we've done. This was really like a taboo thing, and so we were suffering for a couple of years just by ourselves, feeling very alone, and it got to the point where I just said look, you know, I know that we've dedicated everything to this and we've left our homes, our beautiful homes. I'm beautiful, I'm in Canada. You're like, okay, home in North Carolina, whatever, and we're going to have to make a change, or I? I'm sorry, but, like, I feel like we need to leave this business because it's not like I can just stay in it and then you suffer over here and it doesn't affect me either, like when we're a unit. So that was the beginning of us thinking about how can we talk about this in a proactive and positive way. We ended up giving him therapy and again, we've really spoken about this a lot, but that was like the seed. That was like, okay, we've gone through this experience, we've come over the other side, gone through this experience, we've come over the other side. Now what? Because people were noticing. They noticed when he was like really going through it and they noticed that he'd gotten better and they wanted to know, like whoa, what happened. So we just decided at the end of 2018 that we would start leveraging social media in a positive way.

Soula Parassidis:

So it was like first week of January 2019, we were so formal, we were so nervous, like you should have seen our notes. We were so funny, we these notes, and it's like if you scroll enough in my, in my Instagram channel or YouTube channel, you can see us like, very like, we are going to speak on the topic of rejection. It was like it progressed, they got more relaxed, but we just felt like nobody was going to talk about it. So we should, and at least there's's two of us, so you know, it's not just one person over here going like I went through this. It's like no, no, we're, we want to.

Soula Parassidis:

We want to create a way for the arts community to have these conversations and then point to a solution, like not just to say, oh man, you know, I really got stressed out, being a singer and business is horrible, and complaints Like no, no, no can do to avoid falling in this hole that we fell into.

Soula Parassidis:

These are practical ways that you can make your life better, both on stage but also off stage, because that's where you spend most of your time. And the interesting thing is we started getting all these like DMs from our peers saying like, oh, you guys, this is so great that you're doing this. You know, I went through this, I went through that and I thought it was so funny because we were getting messages from people who would even have bigger careers than us. I'm like you should put it before I'm talking about it. Like you know, we're over here, we're just these little small fish over here, like, oh my goodness, you know, say something, but I guess maybe, I don't know, in the grand scheme of things, maybe that's like what we're supposed to do. So, anyway, that's how it started.

Elizabeth Bowman:

Do you have the top three things that you would recommend to get over performance anxiety? Do you remember?

Soula Parassidis:

You know I don't remember in that first talk what we said. But I think you know, when we were talking to somebody about if they're experiencing anxiety of any kind, I feel like that is usually rooted in a fear of rejection of some kind, so thinking like they're not going to accept me, they're judging me there. And usually I will start asking questions and say, well, do you judge, do you reject people, do you project this kind of behavior into the world? Because if you can sort of like curb that on your own side, you'll stop looking for it in other people. Whether they're there, they might do it, but as long as you're not living that way, it's like I feel like you're inviting that lesson to your life. So that's one thing. And then the other thing is, of course, honing your skills, which I know we're all trying to do.

Soula Parassidis:

But I feel like a lot of stress comes from when you just know I've never really gotten that high note in rehearsal. But now I'm also knowing like I mean, I realize this is what we dedicated our lives to, but it's just opera, like you're valuable outside of. You know one day we're all going to. You know exit stage left and that's that. And you have so much intrinsic value on that stage and when you go out that stage left door and you close the door forever and you go into your other part of your life, like, oh my goodness, you know we're all so multifaceted. So that's what comes to me today for this particular audience, that maybe somebody needed to hear.

Elizabeth Bowman:

Ultimately, as opera singers or any kind of singer, you're there to communicate something and if you have no distractions in how you're communicating that which you're not feeling judged you're not, you know, looking around you, wondering what everyone is thinking constantly you'll be more successful in getting that message across. it's like this across.

Soula Parassidis:

So totally, you know. You know what else, elizabeth, it's like this they are judging you and it doesn't matter. Yeah, like it's happening, people decide within the first 30 seconds of when you walk out there, whatever they think, but you're there to do a job and ultimately, I feel like you can, as you said, communicate. You can communicate that you are there in some form of service and whatever their reaction is, that's theirs, but you've done your thing and you've done your job.

Elizabeth Bowman:

So I feel like that can really bring rest when people really grasp that I've said this on the podcast before, but my parents would always tell me control the variables you can control and the rest I mean it is what it is. So you put in the work, you hone the skills and you work on your emotional health and mental state and that's really all you can do.

Soula Parassidis:

And also haters going to hate. It's just like, eventually you get to a level of visibility and you're going to have haters because you're visible. That's okay too. It's like okay, I don't know what your problem is, but just go over there Like you know. I don't know how you have time for it. If you're really inside your purpose, I don't have time to look at me or anybody else and be like, well, I'm just going to hate on that person today. It's like.

Elizabeth Bowman:

What a waste of your time communicate via this living opera brand Like what's your favorite.

Soula Parassidis:

Oh, you know it's. It's so funny because there's so many things to build. When you're and I, first of all, I have to say this I did not realize I was building a brand and I started to have some of my um, like younger followers, say, oh my gosh, we're so excited about your brand and you're like, what are they talking about? Like I create content for fun on the road because I find it very calming. Like I love to communicate with people in all these various ways.

Soula Parassidis:

So you know, blog posts, instagram, whatever, and, of course, on stage, but I realized, like trying to reach all the different people we need to reach, because it's not just emerging artists and it's not just administrators and it's not just our peers, and it's also people who might finance projects, and now it's like policymakers, and so I have different persona on different platforms. So I've got my LinkedIn situation going and then I have my Instagram, which is really my favorite because I love to. I don't anybody who's not following me, you don't have to, but that's where I really I feel like I get to just really be myself, because I always wanted to sing comedic roles, but I always end up singing like these tragic people and just sad stuff, and I, in my heart of hearts, you know I wanted to be like Serbinetta or whatever. So, or Rosina or I don't know. So I get. I get to have my little outlet there on my Instagram channel.

Soula Parassidis:

Basically, for me, though, whatever is creative, whether it's singing or writing, or I mean even this is going to sound silly, but like even putting together stuff like grants, I mean it's just. It's just like how do we solve that problem? So it's even when I'm studying in art. It's like how do I solve the problem of communicating this emotion through sound, through gesture, through the text. I mean it's all just a big puzzle. I just love all of it. I mean it's it's. It's just marvelous to hear, whatever facet, whatever I've been trying to do, you know, even if it's a dry, drier LinkedIn post, sometimes I get messages saying, oh, that really helped me, or that's a good insight, and that's the point, like that's, that's for me, that's always like a big like win.

Elizabeth Bowman:

You know big, a big thumbs up emoji like yes, I did it today and I just, I just love that. Not to change the subject too much, but you are coming to Canada to sing. Can you tell us a bit about the event? It's coming up very soon.

Soula Parassidis:

Yes, so this is a cancer fundraiser and this sort of came about in an unusual way. So last year was the 100 year anniversary of the Maria Callas. Well, maria Callas, the Maria Callas Sorry, see, we're nervous. And I sang one of her iconic roles of Iphigénie en Tauride and through that I actually met the former Canadian ambassador to Greece and we became acquaintances and he said you know why haven't you really worked in Canada? And I was like no, you know, it's just, I've always wanted to sing at home. I mean, that was my debut in Greece and I'm also half Greek.

Soula Parassidis:

And I said you know, it's just, every market, you have to build up every market separately, which is another topic. But I said, you know, let's think about how I can come there and do something, and of course there's all the wonderful opera companies and recitals and all of that. But when he learned more about my story he said oh, you're a cancer survivor. Well, how would you feel about coming to Canada to help us raise money? So McGill University has a marvelous project that is basically a gala fashion show. I'm going to get to walk in a couture gown which is like oh, boohoo, and I'm going to sing and raise money for endometrial cancer, and this is my first time singing professionally in Canada and I'm really looking forward to it.

Elizabeth Bowman:

It's in Montreal.

Soula Parassidis:

Now it's really meaningful and interesting for me because it's kind of like a full circle thing. This is a podcast for people who want to learn about being an opera singer, in one sense. So I feel like it's fine to say this here. I didn't say this in my conversation with him as a formal conversation, but when I finished my degree at UBC the week after I got that degree, that's when I was diagnosed with cancer and frankly, if I am honest, I feel like I carried that baggage around for a very long time and I did not talk about it publicly for a very long time because it was just sort of like it's weird, but I associated home with that, with that traumatic experience, and that was actually a more honest answer.

Soula Parassidis:

I just felt like, oh yeah, I don't know, I haven't developed that mark at all, but it was really hard for me to sort of every time I'd go back I would feel that thing tugging on my heart and it was just hard. So for me it's somewhat poetic to go there. I mean, it's funny because there were times where, you know, an opportunity came up to go and sing more formally in an opera company or whatever, and then I was busy doing something else, or it just didn't work or the time or whatever it was. So I think for me it's kind of full circle and poetic that I'm coming to do this and I feel fully healed of that experience. Now I feel fine, but it took a long time Because for me I didn't have endometrial cancer, I had thyroid cancer, so it was in my throat. I lost my voice, I wasn't able to sing, my body changed, I had to change repertoire, like overnight. So you know that's when you're a singer, that's a ton of baggage.

Elizabeth Bowman:

I can't imagine ow many years have you been in remission.

Soula Parassidis:

Oh no, I'm fine, like a long, long time, like no, no, no, cause I mean when they got it out, they got it out completely. So I'm on medication for the rest of my life. But I'm so fortunate, like I mean you guys for real, like that I'm so grateful because because it could have been so much worse it was just more. At that point it was less about even my overall health and more about like I had I had been studying for so many years for this one thing and with one surgery it's like everything was flipped on its head.

Soula Parassidis:

I had to completely pivot in my whole life and I did not have the life skills for that. I mean, I think that's partly why I analyzed that so much and I didn't realize that would be the foundation for what we do in living opera, because living opera is partly education for emerging artists, and so that was actually, you know, as sucky as it was, that was the foundation of the training for what we do now. I didn't realize I was going to be, you know, gathering it up in real time, which is like, but you're going through it, you're like this is terrible. But then when you get to pour it out for other people, you're like wow, like that really had purpose in my life. It wasn't just suffering for, for, for no reason, so I'm very grateful for that.

Elizabeth Bowman:

Yeah, I can only imagine when you go through something so challenging. I mean, there's the saying what doesn't kill you makes you stronger really is true, and bringing that fuel to your performances and to living opera. I mean that's a gift to everyone.

Soula Parassidis:

No, no, it is, it is. And I mean how can you? I mean I'm not saying every person has to go through that. I mean, good grief, I pray that nobody does. I know for me that it shaped so many things that I've done and it is a well that I can draw in in a desperate time in a performance. You know when a character is really going through something, because I've been on the edge of something like that myself. I can draw from a different place. That's not just imagination and I and I think that that's been valuable for me. But you know, there's other times, other operas. It's like you know, I just don't really want to ever have to. You know, in singing Zalame have to get near a real severed head, like that's fine, we're just going to use our imagination for that one, that's all good. It's like, yeah, thanks.

Elizabeth Bowman:

That's fine. Good to not relate to that.

Soula Parassidis:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Bowman:

The former Canadian ambassador to Greece. Are you talking about Robert Peck? Yeah, I met him. Yeah, I used to help administrate a chamber music festival in Greece Cool For a few summers and it's still going the Saronic Chamber Music Festival. Really really fantastic players.

Soula Parassidis:

I think they're still going.

Elizabeth Bowman:

My husband played. My husband has been mentioned on this podcast too much Ben Bowman he's concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera, so he's played there. And then a bunch of players who play in the London symphony orchestra and, um, you know a lot of a lot of Londoners.

Soula Parassidis:

Uh, in it it's cool, I'm in London right now so there you go another full school thing that's. That's so cool. I had no idea you had that connection to Greece.

Elizabeth Bowman:

That's amazing yeah, I haven't been back in a long time, but I would like to, to, to go back. Yeah, everyone listening to the podcast yeah yeah, yeah we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll figure it out, we'll, we'll use connections, Greek connections that festival was based in galata mainland and then they would go out to the different islands Poros and Hydra it's.

Soula Parassidis:

You know that's amazing, you know it's funny like, because when I sang in Greece last year, that was the first time I just felt such a conviction. And it's the same way I feel about Canada and I was like it's time for me to spend more time at home, you know, but home is multifaceted for me because it is Greece and it is Canada and, frankly, my mom is Irish. I did a debut in Ireland and that also felt meaningful. I was quite funny. Actually, side note, they ran like a piece about me and they said, with a name like Sula, we knew she must be Irish. That's horrible Irish accent. Sorry, guys, but I had to laugh. I was like y'all, you're so funny, but I really, through Living Opera, we have such a big community and we have people in Greece and we have a lot of people in Canada and the United States, and I'm really actively thinking about how can we create more projects that aren't just, you know, fun for us to do, but really beneficial and give people a leg up. And this is something that I'm actively thinking about, you know, having been in those places and just wanting to make a difference. You know it is different. I mean, things have improved a lot, um, since, since I did my degree and and came up in Canada. But there's just so much talent.

Soula Parassidis:

I spend most of my time if I'm not, you know, doing regular life stuff or music. I'm over here going like how can we mobilize all these talented people? And you know, I let that jog in my brain for like eight hours a day and then I go to sleep. I'm still trying to come up with the solutions, but right now I'm just I'm trying to build a project where I can really just tour around.

Soula Parassidis:

You know, when I was younger, my dream, you know, speaking of like I'm like, oh my God, like the Met, all the regular places, and of course I still dream about that.

Soula Parassidis:

But I have new dreams and seriously that going around, even to smaller places and connecting with the people who have perhaps been helped by the content or need the content, and they don't know who I am, I don't even care about that it's just like going and actually actively being with people, even if it's just like 50 people or 100 people, that's really getting me going these days. So I'm trying to put together an idea and see like how can I, how can I do this and how can I go and connect and help, also help artists. This might sound funny, but I feel like artists are only shown one pathway to be impactful through their art and I would love to show multiple pathways. What if somebody is meant to stay in Winnipeg and just be a leader there and create something incredible there, but they're told well, if you haven't gone to sing at the Met by this age, whatever I mean, you're not successful. It's like I want to change perception.

Elizabeth Bowman:

Everyone has their own path and of course you can be successful in your hometown and not go away. But yes, there has been. I guess, for our generation of administrators and singers and that kind of thing, that narrative has really been quite strong and I'm feeling like it is changing along with it.

Soula Parassidis:

I do too. Yeah, yeah, I do too. I do too. I just want to see. I remember my teacher in Canada, if I'm not mistaken. I mean, wasn't there like didn't the COC go on tour? Wasn't that a thing? Like they go all around the country? Is that a thing again?

Elizabeth Bowman:

I'm so out of, I'm so out of touch, like I don't know if they went all around the country, but they definitely went to Ottawa, where I grew up.

Soula Parassidis:

Um, I feel like he told me stories that, like as a young singer, that he was going and singing like Rigoletto and doing all this stuff, and I was like man, that's how you cut your teeth right.

Elizabeth Bowman:

I mean, I was fast for three years in Germany, so that's where I cut my teeth by the time I was doing freelance stuff.

Soula Parassidis:

You know that's. I already wanted to feel comfortable on stage, but I really just dream of, you know, systems and strategies where people can go out and really fail like, really do a bad performance. I think we need that. I'm serious, like I did some stuff when I was at Oprah Leipzig, like I always tried to give it my all but sometimes I was like man, was that even? Was that okay, like, but it was safe. It was safe for me to, you know, botch a high note and you know I didn't have to get worried that I'm going to get written up bad in the press or whatever. You know, and I feel like again, it's another bit of a tangent, but I just I want us to study how did people learn? How did? How are people trained in the past? How did this work? I would love to just sit with my teacher for the next six months and just be like, like in his act, like going and now what do I do?

Elizabeth Bowman:

And I just love the process and I feel like everything's so rushed Circling back to, because I was just thinking about the time that I had in Greece, all these amazing musicians gathering together in a beautiful place, but a lot of the communities they went to they didn't have access to classical music and didn't even know who Schubert was. It was just not known and they would play these concerts for very low ticket price for the communities and everyone was having a good time. There was no worries. I mean, maybe there were worries, but I wasn't privy to them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Soula Parassidis:

It was two hours. It was like we had a worry-free dome, but then, yeah, no, no, no.

Soula Parassidis:

Then, yeah, no, no, no. Yeah, I mean, the thing is okay. I love to just talk to strangers. I don't know if you can tell I was sitting on the subway here coming into london two days ago. Yeah, it was two days ago. I'm like the days are just blurring together. I was trying to get to this last performance at eno that my husband was doing and I was sitting next to some folks from south africa they, you, I don't know. I guess it was taking a long time, like so what do you do? And I said, oh, you know, I'm an artist.

Soula Parassidis:

Like no, but like you know, oh yeah, what do you do? Do you paintings? Like okay, I'm an opera singer. Like I always know the minute I say that it's all going to be like so eventually I got, I got the boat turned. You know interesting stuff that they do, but they really wanted to know more about the life of opera and opera singers. And so, well, you know, you could just go to a show.

Soula Parassidis:

I'm like, oh well, you know, it's like really expensive. And I was just like man, we need new PR. Like what's going on here. It is so much more expensive to go to so many different other activities than it is to go to the opera. At this point, like we, we can to make this accessible. But now I think it's just like a narrative thing. So I said I just pulled something out of the air. I said, well, don't you think tickets to Taylor Swift are much more expensive? And when they thought about it they were like huh, never thought about it that way. And I said, do you feel like maybe you just sort of like accepted that idea, because this is what I honestly said. I said, look, think about it. We're asking you to come, sit still in a theater and not make noise. Listen to something for, like, let's say, three hours in a language that you probably don't speak.

Elizabeth Bowman:

That's probably uncomfortable because, then what if you?

Soula Parassidis:

don't like it, or if you don't like the sounds or what, if you don't understand, and then it makes you feel dumb. You know, I mean seriously and I said so first of all. We're there to make you feel something, whatever that feeling is, and just go read the plot ahead of time. Just, you know, just read the plot and find, find a ticket for 50 bucks or 20, I don't know 20 bucks, wherever, wherever you are, you know, and just just try it once, and if you don't like it, you don't ever have to go again. But I said, you know, we met here and we're having this conversation. There are always ways to go for less.

Elizabeth Bowman:

When I moved to New York. I used to go to the opera all the time and obviously I wasn't paying full price for tickets because they would have student rush tickets or standing room tickets. I went standing room a lot. I loved standing room. It's a cool crew. In the standing room department I realized that everyone's like why would you stand for three hours? I'm like, well, you can do squats, it's good, it's a.

Soula Parassidis:

You know why? It's because you remember it, one of my most memorable nights at the opera was standing room at the Vienna State Opera and Aditya Gubarova was doing one of her last performances and we wept the whole night. It was cathartic, it was beautiful. I felt like I was, you know, in the presence of something you know transcendent, divine. I was just like, okay, wow, you know, I got to be part of that and that's the potential here.

Soula Parassidis:

So I mean, it's like, and when you walk, oh my God, like you walk into a theater like the Met, and it is just like you need a second to catch your breath. There is nothing like that. There is nothing like it, I'm sorry, like, fight me guys. There's nothing like that. You walk in and you just go like and it takes your breath away.

Soula Parassidis:

And I, and I think, in a world where everything's immediate, you know, and it's just like there's just so much noise, I think it's worth it to invest in experiences that take your breath away, and that's certainly one of them, because you feel in a place like that, or a place like Salzburg festival or, you know, scala, I mean you walk in and at least for me and maybe it's different because obviously I'm part of it. But I just feel the weight of those places and the grandeur and the history and I just think I got to walk in here tonight. I can't believe this Right, and it is such. It's life changing and I think that's what we're trying to articulate sometimes to people, but it's hard to find the words.

Elizabeth Bowman:

That's definitely the beauty of live theater performances is that you are there and you are witnessing it and feeling it and all the things and not everything can be done through video, but being there is very, very special, all the energy being transferred between you and the stage and you and the fellow audience members there's really nothing like it Anyway. I want to thank you very much for being here and chatting with me and I wish you well in your Canadian premiere. I guess professional Thank you.

Soula Parassidis:

Thank you, yeah, it's very special and very full circle, like I said, and I look forward to also coming and singing operas and all of that too. But I think this was the right thing for my first time in Canada and thanks for the opportunity just to share a little bit about me and living opera with this wonderful community of artists.