The Diva Pharmacist

Opera celebrates the human experience with gusto as does Livia Beysevic, clinical pharmacist by day and opera singer by night.

Living with passions means the drama Beysevic enjoys in opera is not confined to after-hours arias. She has spent 25 years at the renowned Hospital for Sick Children (HSC) in Toronto. For the last five, she has worked with infants in the Neonatal ICU, where she sees "real joy and real sorrow."

A small woman with a large and engaging presence, Beysevic has organized three benefit concerts for the cardiology department at the HSC. She competes in music festivals. She sings in the pharmacy. She sings for her teachers. And she sings for herself.

Beysevic says, "I sing because I feel it and it is my pleasure."

Music is in her blood. She grew up in Prague with a father who was a violin virtuoso, playwright, and stage producer. She studied violin for seven years and piano for three. After leaving her native Czechoslovakia in 1968, she came to Canada via Britain. Beysevic then gave up music to master English and take her pharmacy degree at the University of Toronto.

Once she graduated, she felt something was missing, and realized it was the music. So her husband bought a piano at an auction for $100. According to the piano tuner, she had "a fine piece of furniture but not much else."

At the prompting of a friend who worked at the Royal Conservatory of Music in downtown Toronto, Beysevic decided to use her "own instrument," and enrolled in lessons with a voice teacher and a singing coach.

Beysevic was not content simply to sing as a hobby, but wanted "to sing like a real opera singer." Having mastered her native Czech, as well as Russian, German and English, she went to a Berlitz school to learn French and Italian. "You can't sing opera and not know Italian," she observes.

With two hours of voice lessons and coaching each week, Beysevic is a serious amateur. At the last Kiwanis Festival in which she participated, she won in her class and placed second in the Festival's Rose Bowl Competition.

As for her repertoire, she likes Russian songs because they connect her to her past. When she was a mezzo soprano, she sang Delilah and Carmen, the "bad girls." Now that she is a soprano, she sings Mimi, the "good girl." Which does she like best? "The bad ones!"

Her work and hobby enrich each other and her. She says the neonatal unit has given her a deeper philosophy of life. "You learn very quickly what is important. You learn to take the time to teach a family, to arrange for a pharmacy close to home, or whatever to lighten the patient's or family's burden."

"When something devastating happens," she says, "I cannot sing. I cannot take my lesson. I cannot do what I love." When she is so weary that she hopes her lesson has been cancelled, she drags herself to the Conservatory. "The minute I enter and hear the music, I become energized."

Voice range Women's voices from highest to lowest are soprano, mezzo soprano, and contralto (or alto). For women, the soprano is generally the heroine, the mezzo soprano is the temptress or older woman, and the contralto plays the unusual characters such as witches. Men's voices from highest to lowest are tenor, countertenor (or male alto, which is rare), baritone, and bass. Roles for men are not quite as prescribed by voice as women's are.

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