The end of Butterfly

Most people know Puccini's opera, 'Madame Butterfly', but a lot of people don't know the full story behind it; a lot of soprano opera singers will avoid this role, as it is so very emotional, one of the reasons why Lisa-Lee lost her voice. We have included the lyrics (in english), to Butterfly's final aria, it is called, 'con onor muore, Tu, Tu, piccolo iddio! This is how the opera ends, Butterfly is about to kill herself, she gets her dagger and quietly reads the inscription, it says, "He dies with honour who cannot live with honour".

Then in a desperate bid to stop Butterfly from killing herself, Suzuki rushes in and puts Butterfly's son in her arms, Butterfly drops the dagger and sings her final words to her son, she says;

You, You, You, You,
little idol of my heart.
My love, my love
flower of the lily and rose.
Never know that, for you,
for your innocent eyes,
Butterfly is about to die...
so that you may go
away beyond the sea
without being subject to remorse
in later years
for your mother's desertion.
oh, you who have come down to me
from high heaven,
look well, well
on your mother's face,
that you may keep a faint memory of it,
look well!
Little love, farewell!
Farewell, my little love!
Go and play.

Butterfly then puts her son safely away and kills herself with her dagger.

The Screen behind the mirror

In 2008 Lisa-Lee released an additional limited edition album, titled, 'The Screen behind the mirror'. This was released with the debut opera album, 'Sola perduta abbandonata'. The reason for this release was to help the sales of the first album; 'The Screen behind the mirror' managed to sell 10,000 copies over three months, resulting in Lisa-Lee selling just over 30,000 records during 2008.

Some people thought that it was a strange title for an album, but it had a deeper meaning to Lisa-Lee, what is meant by it, is for people to not judge other people, don't think you know someone from what you see on the outside, because there is a screen behind every mirror, just like a person, there is more to them than what you see.

2009 turned out to be a very difficult year for Lisa-Lee, this was because the later part of 2008 was a tough year for Lisa-Lee, not within her career, that was going from strength to strength, but her private life was a different story. Lisa-Lee found out that her friends son was dying, he was only six years old, Lisa-Lee had seen him grow up, he had a difficult early life, but the hardest part was that the boys mother had a drink and drug problem, so she was unable to cope with her sons illness, so Lisa-Lee decided to nurse him during the last five months of his life.

Lisa-Lee grew very close to 'Ben', she said that she'd of done anything to take his pain away and cure him, but she couldn't, all she could do was be there for him, Lisa-Lee said that he was the bravest person she's ever met and had he of lived, she would of arranged to adopt him, but that wasn't possible. Ben died in Lisa-Lee's arms; the grief spilled over into Lisa-Lee's career, because during her only opera performance of 2009, a performance of Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly', she lost her voice, it was the final part of the opera, when Butterfly kills herself for her little boy to live!

Some people don't realise that in the final aria of 'Madame Butterfly'; Butterfly is singing goodbye to her little boy, telling him how much she loves him. The words had such a deep meaning to Lisa-Lee, this resulted in her completely losing her voice, it ended up taking Lisa-Lee two years to retrain herself to sing opera.

2009 kept getting worse for Lisa-Lee, she was chosen to perform in another Puccini opera, 'Tosca', but when the organises saw what Lisa-Lee looked like, they very rudely told her that she was far too ugly and way too fat, so she got sacked. The organisers chose a very pretty young women, who did a terrible performance; the critics hated it, so that brought Lisa-Lee some joy; although she wouldn't of been able to do the performance, as she had lost her voice.

Things took a nasty turn for Lisa-Lee during 2009, she had decided to lose weight, but while out walking Lisa-Lee fell on a used hypodermic needle, this meant that she had to have quite a few injections to protect herself, also she had to wait 12 weeks (3 months), to find out if she had contracted the HIV virus; it was highly unlikely that Lisa-Lee would of caught HIV but she still had to be tested to be 100% certain. The worry of the HIV re-awoken fears from Lisa-Lee's childhood, during her early years when she was abused by a group of paedophiles, they used to tell Lisa-Lee that they had infected her with HIV and she was going to die!

Lisa-Lee was going through a hugely stressful time, remembering past events that she had completely forgotten, she was having panic attacks and bad nightmares, when she could sleep, so she eventually went to a counsellor and was told that she was suffering from, 'post traumatic stress disorder' (PTSD). Through counselling Lisa-Lee got through it; not only was Lisa-Lee dealing with grief but she also had to relive her childhood ordeals and try to get her voice back, part of Lisa-Lee just gave up, she'd had enough and needed to take time to slowly build herself back up.

Lisa-Lee gave her most open interview to her local newspaper, 'The south Wales Evening post'. This was part of her recovery from 'PTSD', and it was a way of letting people know what she had been through, most people judged her and put her down without knowing anything about her. In this interview Lisa-Lee spoke openly about her memories of abuse, she told them how she was told that she had been infected with HIV and was going to die, and how they sold her to each other for 10p, and how they would sometimes strangle her until she almost passed out, just to show her that they could kill her if they wanted to.

To give Lisa-Lee time to recover her record company changed their release plans, they decided to put out another limited edition EP / album, this was only released in the UK and Ireland, to try to build up her profile and boost the sales of her debut opera album, as it was released free with it; the title of this release was, 'Almost nothing'. Lisa-Lee says that this is how she was made to feel by people; like she was almost nothing! Unfortunatley this release failed to be successful, but it was badly promoted, something out of Lisa-Lee's control. 

Sola, perduta, abbandonata

After taking several months off during 2005 to clean up the mess left behind from Lisa-Lee's last recording deal, she was considering quitting the music industry for good, but luckily for Lisa-Lee she got introduced to the 'Moggi' brothers, they ran their own independent opera company in Italy, and they were interested in working with Lisa-Lee; they were trying to launch their opera group in the UK and Ireland and they wanted to set up their own record label, and Lisa-Lee not only had the vocal talent to go into opera, but she had the contacts to set up a label.

The Moggi brother decided to give Lisa-Lee several months to train her opera voice, ready for an audition, which happened in July 2006. They were all more than happy with what Lisa-Lee could do, so they asked her to start training for three operas, they assisted Lisa-Lee's development by arranging voice lessons once a month.

Lisa-Lee's early opera voice is her copying the Italian opera diva 'Renata Scotto', the opera group didn't have a problem with that, as the plan was to gradually break Lisa-Lee into the opera world; it was planned that for the first five years Lisa-Lee would do semi-professional opera performances, these semi-professional opera performances were corporate events, and a small amount of critics would be invited to hear Lisa-Lee's performances, gradually becoming more as the events grew. After the five years, the plan was to gradually build Lisa-Lee's profile on the professional opera stage, they were planning on getting Lisa-Lee to do a few opera festivals and open air concerts, and continue her corporate concerts for another two years, then for her to move into the touring part of the opera group.

In 2007 Lisa-Lee starred in her first opera, she was to play the part of Liu in Puccini's opera 'Turandot'. Lisa-Lee didn't get paid for these two performances, as all the money was going to charity but it was a good introduction into the 'real' opera world, the European critics that were there said that Lisa-Lee's performance was 'truly beautiful'. The second opera that Lisa-Lee starred in later on in 2007 was Puccini's 'Sr. Angelica', with Lisa-Lee playing the lead / title role (sister Angelica); this was just a one off performance, Lisa-Lee didn't feel too happy with her performance, as she said that she made lots of little mistakes, but no one noticed, as the one critic that was there wrote that Lisa-Lee gave another beautiful performance. Lisa-Lee says that she was more nervous about this performance, as it was the first one that she was getting paid for.

In 2008 the Moggi brothers decided that Lisa-Lee had to do the opera role of 'Madama Butterfly', this was the role that Renata Scotto was best known for, and although Lisa-Lee was nervous about doing this role, she agreed, it was the best decision she made, as the critics really began to pay attention to her, at first some were stand-offish as Lisa-lee was copying another soprano, but after seeing her in Butterfly, they didn't care too much; at the start of 2008 Lisa-Lee did two performances of Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly. The few critics wrote that Lisa-Lee's performance brought everyone to tears, they said that she has one of the most beautiful and pretties voices in opera, one of the critics even wrote that Lisa-Lee was one of the most exciting young female opera voices to come along for years.

This lead to the release of Lisa-Lee's debut opera recital album, titled, 'Sola, perduta, abbandonata'. The translation of this is, 'alone, lost, abandoned'. This 2008 release contained Lisa-Lee's debut opera performance in Puccini's Turandot, plus several other recording Lisa-Lee made during the last four years. The reviews of this album were good and it slowly built up to become a success, it wasn't a huge success but gradually it built up enough sales to be considered a hit in the opera world. This album was not a mainstream release, it was kept as a special limited edition release, the record company only planned to promote it for 18 months before withdrawing it, during this time, the album went on to sell just over 20,000 copies over Europe.

Later in 2008 Lisa-Lee was due to perform in her fourth opera, this time a Verdi opera, 'Nabucco', it was reported that the Moggi brothers were asked to put on this opera for a Russian billionaire who's partner was dying, they were fans of Renata Scotto but never got to see her in an opera, so they were hugely interested in Lisa-Lee, they paid the opera group £250,000 for them to stage this opera, on the strict instruction that Lisa-Lee was to play the role of Abigail. Unfortunately this opera got cancelled due to the Russian billionaires partner falling very ill, she later on died.

Later in 2008 Lisa-Lee did one more performance in 'Madama Butterfly'; career wise 2007 and 2008 turned out to be very good years for Lisa-Lee, she was finally getting some where in the opera world

Fragile

In 2005 Lisa-Lee was set to release an album titled, 'Fragile', although this album was never released. This was due to the fact that Lisa-Lee felt that she couldn't cope any longer, she felt like she has having a nervous break down, due to all the trouble and problems that were being caused by the man from the last record company, he had become Lisa-Lee's first stalker; she said that it was not only a hugely stressful time but it was also a frightening time! Having people follow you around taking your photo, then having these photos sent to you with death and rape threats, being followed in the car in the evenings, and having to drive dangerously to get away from them, these people were trying to cause Lisa-Lee to crash her car, she describes it as a terrible time.

Lisa-Lee pulled out of the release of the new album as she just needed to take a break from the industry, she wasn't sure if she still wanted to be in the music industry, was it worth it? Was it going to get much worse or better? How was she going to get rid of her stalker or was he really going to try to kill her! Lisa-Lee says that she had lost her fight, she needed time away from everything and everyone, so she could decide on her future, where was life taking her?

Breath of life

In 2004 Lisa-Lee released her first main stream classical album titled, 'Breath of life'. This is the first album that got the media and other people more interested in Lisa-Lee, although this album was also a huge commercial flop; although that was due to problems with the record company and things out of Lisa-Lee's control. Everyone seemed to like and enjoy this album, it should have been a huge success but it almost ended her career.

Lisa Lee always wanted to work with a British record company, and that is what she achieved with the 'Breath of life' album, but it was the worst thing that happened in her career. Someone from the record company had mental health problems, and he became obsessed with Lisa-Lee; he used to try to 'control' Lisa-Lee and used to threaten to kill himself if Lisa-Lee refused to obey his orders. In the end Lisa-Lee told him to go ahead and kill himself, as she found it hard to cope with his behaviour, then the threats became more stressful, as he would either threaten to poison and kill Lisa-Lee, or he would threaten to kill his own 2 year old little boy!

Lisa-Lee got in touch with the mans family and they were not surprised, and it was then that Lisa-Lee discovered that he was a paranoid schizophrenic who didn't always take his medication. He made Lisa-Lee's life a misery for years, so she refused to work with him, and what he was doing was damaging to her career, plus because he couldn't get control over Lisa-Lee he tried to ruin her career. He kept sending her the record companies bills and spreading lies about her, plus he paid people to follow her and take her photo, then he would post them to her with threats against her life. In the end the only thing that seemed to work was when Lisa-Lee just completely ignored him, although she did later on find out that he had been sectioned.

Lisa-Lee refuses to name him, partly because she is worried that if she gives him any attention, the obsession with her might come back, and that is the last thing that she wants; but the other reason why she won't name him, is out of respect for him and his family. Lisa-Lee says that the family were kind and helpful, they took the time to listen to her and gave her advice, which she took, but also Lisa-Lee feels that the person who almost ruined and ended her career was actually a kind and caring, good hearted person, who just had his own problems that he needed to deal with. Lisa-Lee says that he was very misunderstood, as when he was well and listening, he was very good at his job, although there were issues that he couldn't deal with, so his way of dealing with them; is to not take his medication and allow his paranoid mind take control. Lisa-Lee hopes that he gets better and has a happy and healthy life, she wishes him no harm, even though he wanted to kill her!

The 'Breath of life' album, was supposed to be a new age classical style album, but the record company decided to call it a pop opera classical crossover album, even though Lisa-Lee had made it very clear that this is the last thing she wanted her album classed as, due to the fact that she wanted to become an opera singer and this could have closed doors to her, as the opera critics hate the classical crossover artists and music, but on top of that the record company made last minute changes to the finished album that Lisa-Lee knew nothing about, and they didn't have the correct licences in place, but they also refused to tell Lisa-Lee where to she had to go in London to do her radio promotion, the man from the record company told her that he couldn't tell her where to go, as people were listening on the phone! This is why it was impossible for Lisa-Lee to carry on working with this man and record company.

New Era Featuring Lisa Lee Dark

Due to the success of Lisa-Lee's last release, 'A journey of faith', Chris Jenkins, Lisa-Lee's first manager, decided to cash in on her success. He started releasing classical material in the early 1990's, this material was vocal work and instrumental work with a choir and orchestra in the studio, he would usually have Lisa-Lee singing some solo vocal work, so she could be classed as the main vocalist of this group / project.

This studio group / project was hugely successful, but that was mostly down to the fact that the name changed a good few times. To begin with (in 1992) the group were called, 'The KLF', Chris was later asked to change the name as there was already a group with that same name that was successful, so he changed the name of his group to, 'Cappella', in 1995, but was once again asked to change the name for the same reasons, so in 1997 he changed the name of his group to, 'Enigma', but had to change it for the same reasons, so in 2000 he called his group, 'ERA', but had to change it again, so in 2001 he changed it to, 'New Era', but this was only a small EP release, he had no trouble with this name, but as Lisa-Lee was beginning to make a name for herself, he decided to cash in on it and re-name the group yet again, this time to, 'New Era featuring Lisa Lee Dark'.

In 2003 Chris Jenkins put an album together of Lisa-Lee's classical vocal singing, that he owned the copyright to, and planned to release it, unfortunately, the distributor went bust before the release, and a short while later, the record company also went bankrupt, so this release never saw the light of day. This was also the end of this musical group, as Chris began to have health problems off and on before he died in late 2009.

The group are classed as new age, Christian classical. This project was hugely successful as the group managed to sell over 2 million records worldwide, although everyone believes that it was mostly down to the name, most of the people who bought these records most likely thought they were buying another bands album, Chris claims that he didn't realise that his studio group had the same name as another band, already successful and selling, but Lisa-Lee says that he did it on purpose, most of the sales happened online, and when they went into record shops, the albums usually ended up with the original bands, so people were duped into buying it. This project made Chris a wealthy man, but Lisa-Lee was just paid as a session singer with an extremely small percentage going into a trust fund, that later on went bankrupt, leaving Lisa-Lee with nothing.

The last dance album

VIP international records decided to go back on their word / agreement with Lisa-Lee, she was supposed to release 3 albums with other projects, and then begin releasing her own solo material, but the MD's at VIP decided to re-start Lisa-Lee's deal, with her spending at least three more years / albums being released as free give aways with another project / album; but Lisa-Lee couldn't afford to do that, as she made no money from the first three albums, she just had studio time and she couldn't afford to not be earning for at least three more years, so Lisa-Lee asked them to terminate her recording deal; this was upsetting for Lisa-Lee as she had worked so hard to get her first deal, but Lisa-Lee had no guarantees that the MD's wouldn't just keep doing the same thing, they broke their promises to her and she no longer trusted them.

Before the contract was officially over Lisa-Lee had to do one more release, the record company wanted to prove to Lisa-Lee that she wasn't good enough to be a solo artist, so they allowed her to create her own album, even though it would be another free give away, they believed that it wouldn't sell many copies, but they were wrong!

In 2002 Lisa-Lee released her fourth and final dance album, 'Asia', Lisa-Lee was very clever with what she did, as she used dance songs that had an Asian musical influence, this proved to be a winning thing because the football world cup was going on in Asia, so her little free album got radio airplay on its own; when critics were reviewing the main dance music compilation album, they went on to review Lisa-Lee's free album, they recommended that people should buy the dance compilation album, just to get a copy of Lisa-Lee's album.

The record company were taken by surprise, there was demand for Lisa-Lee's album, so they did start to sell it as a solo album, but only through the record companies own website, they missed a great opportunity by not relaunching it and selling it as a solo release, the album (Asia) had the ability to be a big hit on its own. Asia went on to sell just over 30,000 copies, this turned out to be the record companies most successful release, it would of sold a lot more if they had marketed and promoted it as a solo release, but they refused to, which shows why they went bust a few years later. Lisa-Lee believes that it was because of her weight issue, she hadn't lost any weight even though she was trying, but there was a lot more to it than just losing weight, it wasn't that simple for Lisa-Lee.

After the success of the album 'Asia', the record company wanted to do something for the victims and survivors of 9/11, they asked Lisa-Lee if she would be prepared to do a small charity release; they wanted to release some recordings of hers that she made as a teenager, singing Christian songs. This EP was titled, 'A journey of faith'; this was only released on cassette through mail order, all the money went to the 9/11 appeal; even though this was only a mail order release it shifted over 45,000 copies. Lisa-Lee believes that the record company only released that EP to get some free and good publicity for themselves.

From 1999 - 2002 Lisa-Lee sold around 100,000 records for VIP international records, the success of the last release showed Lisa-Lee that it was time for her to return to her musical roots and go back to classical music.