After conquering cancer as a teen, this Newfoundland opera singer looks forward to career on the stage
Paige Sargent will be five years cancer free in May
After a central Newfoundland woman's life was uprooted with a cancer diagnosis at a young age, she turned to her passion for music.
Now, Paige Sargent, a mezzo-soprano opera singer from Lewisporte, N.L., is embarking on a career on the stage with her graduating recital this week at Memorial University's School of Music in St. John's.
"When I was 16, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin's lymphoma and so I had to kind of stop school, [and] moved to the Janeway to undergo treatment for my cancer," she told CBC Radio's Weekend AM.
"But while I was doing that, I continued my music all throughout."
Sargent was in the hospital for six months and had to undergo eight rounds of chemotherapy. In May she will mark five years of being cancer free.
"Obviously, it was a very traumatic experience to have cancer at 16," she said.
She spent her first year at university recovering mentally. But, she said, her professors were understanding and welcoming.
Falling in love with opera
Sargent says she was introduced to opera by a cousin, who had just come home from a U.K. trip where they had seen a musical.
After learning more, she fell in love with opera, she said.
Sargent took singing lessons as a child and developed her operatic skills, like using her voice to fill a big room.
"I started taking lessons with Leslie Hewlett and we worked on my classical technique, doing baby bits of opera, while she helped gear me up to get ready to go to music school and really fine tune that technique," said Sargent.
In the middle of it all was the COVID-19 pandemic, which she says added more isolation on top of her treatment.
But even through that, Sargent says she told her music instructor she still wanted to continue with her voice, piano and acting lessons, which they did over Zoom.
"I was the lead in a musical and I said, 'Please let me still do it even though I'm in the Janeway.' And they said, 'You know what, we'll make it work.'" Sargent said.
Sargent says she attended rehearsals on FaceTime, singing songs hundreds of kilometres away while in the hospital.
"The nurses, I think, seem to like that I was singing opera. I think they found it a bit entertaining, I hope," she said.
After Sargent graduates from MUN, she's heading to British Columbia to complete a masters degree.
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With files from Weekend AM