Saudi’s First Opera Singer Sawsan Albahiti On Her Rollercoaster Journey To Success And Beyond
The talented singer – who has duetted with Andrea Bocelli and performed with the Paris Opera – shares the story of her boundary-breaking career, marked by highs, lows, and rock music in her early years
Metallica, Pearl Jam and The Cranberries aren’t exactly the musicians you expect to associate with an elegant soprano – especially Saudi Arabia’s first opera singer. But Sawsan Albahiti happily lists the guitar bands that she was listening to in her formative years.
“As a family, we would always listen to music in the car. My parents would choose classical Arabic music but if my older siblings were in charge, it was always Western rock music,” she recalls of growing up in Riyadh. “It’s what made me want to play the guitar, which is something my siblings were doing already, and I started practising at around six years old.” As the years passed, Sawsan’s passion for music didn’t abate. “My taste transformed into listening to pop music, and I was a huge fan of Backstreet Boys – a typical teenager,” she laughs, pointing out there wasn’t any real access to opera growing up. “I guess I was sort of exposed to it through Disney songs that had something that resembles operatic singing. I remember Sleeping Beauty had a scene where she’s singing in a very lovely operatic voice, but opera was not something in our house.”
So far, this story of growing up in the 1990s could be that of a child anywhere in the world, but life in the Kingdom wasn’t one that encouraged live music, and her passion was hidden behind closed doors. “I would perform or play my guitar to my friends and family, people would notice that I have a ‘lovely’ voice,” remembers Sawsan, 35, who explains that anything more public just wasn’t possible. “I would have definitely gone to music school in Saudi if I could. If there were performance opportunities, I would have seized them for sure, but who knows, maybe it wouldn’t have led me to opera.”
In 2007, Sawsan moved to the UAE, where one of her older sisters was now living, to enrol on a Mass Communications – Advertising degree at the American University of Sharjah. She loved the course but still had a desire to perform musically, so began entering open mic competitions at the university and would sing accompanied by her guitar.
“I remember playing Shakira, Beyoncé, Alicia Keys and some rock like The Cranberries,” she says. “I realised later on that I was always picking the higher pitched songs, as they were more suitable for my voice – it was sort of grooming me to go into opera in a way.”
Sawsan started winning the open mic competitions and still remembers her first win. “I sang Thank You by Dido and it was my first taste of fame,” she jokes. “A few days later, I was on a bus to Dubai and I was recognised by someone, suddenly everyone was whispering and they started cheering me.”
In her second year of university, Sawsan decided to make music a more permanent feature in her life and chose choral singing as an elective. “With the student competitions, I was enjoying the singing part more than the guitar playing part, so I wanted to explore something new with singing,” recalls Sawsan. “On this course we would be training to sing in a choir and as soloists. We’d perform scenes from different operas and different Broadway musicals, then we’d perform as soloists in a concert set-up.”
Sawsan’s potential was instantly spotted by the choir conductor and his wife – an opera singer and vocal coach. “They offered to do vocal coaching with me and trained me to sing with the choir and to sing with an accompanist. It was continuous training. I would be practising four days a week. And then every four months, at the end of term, we’d have a performance.”
Sawsan also performed as part of the university’s newly set up Vocal Guild at Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. She sang in English and French, which she had spoken for many years, and also in German and Italian, which she had begun learning, in order to master all the main languages that the famous operas are sung in. Sawsan was in her element for those two short years, but she knew her course was coming to an end and she would eventually return to Saudi Arabia, and with that any hopes of a career in music would evaporate.
“I had dreams to be a great opera singer, but I knew that there was this big shadow of ‘you cannot do this for real’ – so I didn’t even dwell on it. I didn’t allow myself to play with the idea because it would have been devastating,” she remembers.
“With my parents, there would be more of a concern that when you do something that goes against your country – not just government but the people as well – it’s not something that they want their daughter to do. It wasn’t just because of being in Saudi, it was also the idea that music isn’t a reliable career anywhere in the world.”
Sawsan returned to the Kingdom in 2011 and settled into a job in marketing, as singing took a back seat. “I wasn’t performing, and I didn’t have any opportunities to train, grow or develop my skill. I was just reverting to my recordings of previous training sessions to maintain my voice,” explains Sawsan of the importance of keeping her breath work and vocal cords strong but lacking the motivation to do so when she didn’t have regular performances to train for. “During those next seven years of jobs in marketing and management, I remember doing a private performance for the family, another one for a group of musicians, and performing at both my brothers’ weddings – but that was it.”
In 2018, Sawsan decided to leave the marketing and management career that she could no longer bear. She’d always thought that music would just be a hobby, but the announcement of Saudi Vision 2030 and the creation of the General Authority for Entertainment and The Ministry of Culture, meant that suddenly music might be a viable career option after all. “I had so many ideas,” explains Sawsan excitedly. “I’m not just an artist, I’m also a leader, and I love to teach and introduce new things into bigger groups. So, I thought, okay, we’re building the music industry. This is my time. I want to introduce opera to Saudi.”
Sawsan’s first idea was to establish a vocal coaching school to encourage singers of all disciplines to take the training they needed to gain careers in the industry. “Vocal training was an unheard-of practice for singers, whether they are up-and-coming artists or established artists, so I wanted to start that.” To make sure she had the correct credentials, she enrolled in a hybrid remote and in person course with the New York Vocal Coaching studio. After completion, she set up her own coaching practice, The Soulful Voice.
Secondly, she wanted to encourage more people to fall in love with opera specifically – as both performers and as fans. The way she planned to do that was to establish herself as an artist. “In 2019, I announced myself as an artist and so, introduced opera to Saudi. I was doing interviews and talking about opera, about music in general and about vocal coaching,” says Sawsan, who at this time gained the moniker of Saudi Arabia’s first opera singer. “I was seen as an expert figure in the industry, so when the Music Commission was starting to come together, I became a consultant for it, and then joined full-time, and stayed for over two years.” She goes on to add: “I’ve done such great work with the Music Commission and fulfilled a lot of my purpose in building the music industry. I lead one of the biggest initiatives for the Ministry, which is establishing the Saudi National Orchestra choir. This was a big achievement.”
Alongside her work for the Music Commission, public and corporate gigs started coming in for Sawsan. “A highlight was in June 2019, being invited by the Minister of Culture himself to perform the Saudi national anthem in Riyadh to open a performance by the Italian symphony orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala Academy. This is now my signature performance, the Saudi national anthem performed operatically,” she explains. “More work and more performance requests followed after that.”
Suddenly, Sawsan’s dreams of being a performer were being realised. “Then Covid-19 happened,” she sighs with a long pause. “I felt like everything would have to stop.” But, with so many opera experts worldwide with free time on their hands, Sawsan used the opportunity to begin connecting with masters of the art and even did some remote performances for a global audience. “I worked with some of the most amazing people, like a conductor from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and an opera singer from the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium. I streamed a performance with a group of singers in Berlin for World Opera Day, and did another streaming performance for the Saudi British Society in London.” Sawsan performed in a plethora of languages – a mix of Italian, French and Arabic. “I always try to make sure I sing something in Arabic to maintain the identity. But, of course, until April of this year, there was no opera repertoire in Arabic, so I would try to bring some of the classical Arabic songs and arrange them into an operatic style.”
The Arabic opera repertoire she talks of is Zarqa Al Yamama – the first grand opera to be produced in Saudi Arabia. It held its opening performance in Riyadh this April and Sawsan was cast to perform in it. “It had 99 per cent Western singers and artists, and the main star was British opera singer Dame Sarah Connolly. To see such incredible artists singing opera in Arabic was a huge source of pride,” Sawsan effuses. “It was done really well. I was concerned about whether they were going to be able to maintain that fine balance between having the Arabic flavour and keeping the opera skeleton, but they really nailed that. There have been attempts before from different countries in the Arab world to make opera in Arabic, but it always turned out as an Arabic musical.”
Sawsan’s opera credentials continue to impress. Earlier this year, she had a career highlight performing in AlUla with the world’s most beloved tenor Andrea Bocelli and Italian soprano Serena Gamberoni, and with the Paris Opera at a separate event. Since these performances in January, Sawsan has relocated to Italy for a scholarship from the Saudi Music Commission to continue her training as an opera singer.
“The Music Commission has launched a programme of establishing opera in Saudi Arabia,” she explains. “The first part of it, which is what I’m doing now, is sending the current opera singers abroad to get professional training, which is a one-year programme. And then, the second part will be forming an expert team, that will come to different cities in Saudi to train the upcoming opera singers. The third part will be establishing the opera curriculum and higher education.”
Sawsan still thinks there’s more work to be done to entice young people into exploring opera and embarking on a career in it, but is sure that with more opera available in the public domain, that will come. She’s also quick to praise the work the Music Commission is doing to get young people interested in music as a whole. “There’s no music industry as of yet, so [the Music Commission] is laying those foundations with massive initiatives around education for music. It’s just completed an amazing project to train 16,000 kindergarten teachers to teach music, and worked with the Ministry of Education to create the music curriculum and have it as required subjects in schools. This has never happened before,” she says. “The Commission is also working to bring more and more events to The Kingdom, as well as different competitions. It’s also opened the first government music centres, with three branches across Saudi, each with a small theatre and recording studio, providing vocational music training. It’s also a hub for musicians to get to know each other.”
It’s a far cry from the Saudi Arabia Sawsan grew up in, which must resonate in different ways. “I’m envious, I’m so jealous,” she laughs. “We now have something called cultural scholarships for any music specialty that you’d like to go for, I wish I’d had that. But equally, I’m very excited for the up-and-coming generations and I love living in these times in Saudi Arabia.”
Sawsan’s own journey will see her spend the best part of the year in Rome to finish her scholarship, with the odd trip for performances in the Kingdom and Europe. She continues to work remotely with The Soulful Voice students, and will be working on her own music, too. “I’m planning to do a new style, new genre – to have an opera but with a very modern twist, with some fusion. And I’m working with a few popular Arabic music artists, as well. I’m hoping to have some music by the end of the year. It’s an exciting time.”
Sawsan has spent years working towards a dream she never thought was possible for a young Saudi girl who loved rock music. But now, she’s making sure she enjoys every minute, while keeping that dream alive for the younger Saudi generation.
Photographer: Tarek Mawad. Creative Direction: Marne Schwartz. Styling: Anna Castan. Hair: Veronica Magrini. Make-Up: Camilla Spalvieri. Senior Producer: Steff Hawker. Production Coordinator: Chloe Christodoulou. Communications Manager: Johana Dana. Photography Assistance: Allucinazione. Special thanks to Rhinoceros Rome.
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s September 2024 issue.