Professional Slovenian tenor Ambrož Bajec-Lapajne recently put a video of him undergoing an ‘awake craniotomy’ where he was asked to sing in order to ensure a successful surgery.

Bajec-Lapajne, who is now fully recovered, was diagnosed with a brain tumour over a year ago. In this video, the music neuro team of the UMC was also involved in order to assist the surgery, like a medical DJ.

“I sing two (first and last) couplets of Schubert’s lied ‘Gute Nacht’ [The first lied of Schubert’s Die Winterreise (‘The Winter Journey’): the minor-major transition in order to see if I can still recognise the key change. All is fine until 2:40 when things start to get very interesting…”

I’m a big fan of Die Winterreise, especially sung by German Hans Hotter (bass-baritone), but it would be great to see Bajec-Lapajne in concert some day.

There’s no blood and guts in this video, consider it ‘safe for work’, and he sings a few times:

(Link: www.ad.nl)