大象传媒

Dr Jill Bolte Taylor was a Harvard neuroanatomist researching the brain when in 1996, aged 37, she woke to find she was having a massive stroke. For most people it would be a harrowing, life-threatening experience, but for Jill, it brought about a new insight into the workings of the mind. As her brain functions - motion, speech, and memory - failed her, she felt an overwhelming sense of peace. Once the surgeons had removed a clot the size of a golf ball from the left side of her brain, she began an eight-year recovery. Learning to walk and talk again, she was determined to share with the world what she had glimpsed.

When South African Vuvu Mpofu was a teenager in Port Elizabeth, she saw La Traviata on DVD for the first time and it made her fall in love with opera. At first, her family did not approve of her opera obsession and her friends even mocked her. But Vuvu was determined and started studying opera at university, eventually changing their minds. A year before graduating, her mother died and it was then that opera came to her aid. Rather than counselling sessions, she turned to the art as it 鈥渟oothed her soul.鈥� Vuvu now performs at some of the world鈥檚 most prestigious opera houses. She says that every time she takes to the stage, she thinks of her mother. This was first broadcast in 2019.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen
Producer: Edgar Maddicott

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(Photo: Dr Jill Bolte Taylor (right) with her mother, after surgery. Credit: courtesy of Dr Jill Bolte Taylor)