In “Patience,” medical diagnoses are source material for opera arias

A crackling utterance. A blinking eye. A quivering rib cage.

This is how composer Maya Miro Johnson’s ’26MM “Mirror Scene” begins. Featuring mezzo-soprano and co-creator Christina af Klinteberg Herresthal, the scene is part of a larger operatic work entitled Patience. Earlier in 2025, the project was awarded a Creative Entrepreneurship Audience Choice Prize at Startup Yale, hosted by the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale (CITY).

Miro Johnson and Herresthal imagine Patience as both a multimedia opera performance and a novel approach to the culture of public health. Centering the voices of disabled and ill women, the opera uses texts from real patients and historical figures — such as Frida Kahlo, Audre Lorde, and Edith Södergran — to illuminate and humanize issues surrounding gender bias, pain, and misdiagnoses. By harnessing opera as a vehicle for exploring these issues, the goal is to create a “neutral art space” that can better facilitate dialogue between doctors and patients around patient care.

“There is so much data about misdiagnoses, medical discrimination, medical abuse, assault, and gaslighting — literally hundreds of books and peer reviewed articles about these issues,” Miro Johnson points out. “But problems remain. Immersive theater and storytelling events for public health educators, physicians, and medical students can be far more memorable than reading a statistic or a book. By activating empathy through a live performance, and seeing characters who feel real to us, we can create a story that will resonate.”

And empathy truly is at the heart of the project. “The first thing people say to me after hearing about this project is ‘This happened to my mom. This happened to my friend. This happened to my daughter. This happened to me,’” says Miro Johnson. “There’s been an instant connection with the subject: people know there’s a problem. And this is a unique way to start making inroads to help find a solution.” 

In preparing for the Startup Yale event, Miro Johnson took advantage of a variety of resources made available to her through Tsai CITY. She was provided with coaching sessions for her pitch, got notes on how to present, received feedback on how to best structure her deck, and met with advisors on additional grant opportunities. She also looked to Frances Pollock ’19MM, ’25DMA — Director of the Cultural Innovation Lab and herself a veteran of Yale’s entrepreneurial ecosystem — for additional mentorship. 

This holistic approach is built into Tsai CITY’s DNA, as Zoe Hunter, the Center’s Managing Director, explains: “Tsai CITY’s mission is to inspire students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to seek innovative ways to solve real-world problems. Startup Yale is one way this mission comes to life by giving students, across disciplines and venture types, the chance to secure funding for the solutions that matter most to them.”

This support was vital for Miro Johnson’s preparation. “As an artist and a scholar, I’m trained to speak about my work and my research in a specific way. It has nothing to do with profitability or market return,” she says. “But I realized that code switching to that language could open up opportunities for funding and support.”

In addition to Tsai CITY, Miro Johnson tapped into another network on campus: The Humanities, Arts and Public Health Practice at Yale (HAPPY) Initiative. Itself a model for interdisciplinary work, HAPPY aims to “build an evidence base for ethical, practical use of arts and humanities to improve health outcomes” through education, collaboration, and research. Miro Johnson was first introduced to the Initiative through Humanities & Public Health, a course taught by HAPPY’s Director, Judith Lichtman, at Yale’s Center for Collaborative Arts & Media (CCAM). 

“Maya’s selected the modality of an opera to relay the personal and professional tensions that exist at the intersections of public health, policy, and the medical system in a unique and compelling manner,” says Lichtman. “By working from scientific data and leveraging the strengths of the arts, she’s created an exceptional work that has the capacity to draw in her audience by engaging emotion and empathy — such an approach is critical to inform and improve the health of our communities.” 

In HAPPY, Miro Johnson found a preexisting model to analyze the viability of her project and to provide expert feedback. More than that, she got direct access to the very public health and medical professionals Patience is meant to reach. With Lichtman’s support, she intends to stage a workshop performance of the opera for a focus group later in the spring of 2026. 

Miro Johnson’s exploration of resources and partnerships beyond the walls of the School of Music is part of a wider trend, supported by a concerted effort by YSM’s Office of Student Life and Community Engagement. 

“The work Maya is doing with Patience — pitching to investors at Tsai CITY, dialoguing with scholars through HAPPY — embodies an ethos central to our mission at the School of Music,” says Adriana Zabala, the School’s newly appointed Assistant Dean of Collaborative Arts. “There are so many meaningful ways to connect and amplify our work and creativity at Yale. This kind of collaboration is paving an important way forward.” 

So, what’s next for Patience? After a recording session in Oslo and a successful premiere of a new scene commissioned by the Tanglewood Music Center in the summer, Miro Johnson and Herresthal plan on reuniting this November for extensive recording sessions. They’ll continue workshopping material throughout the year, concentrating on receiving feedback from focus groups. 

Between the creative environment of the School of Music, the financial support of the Creative Entrepreneurship Audience Choice Prize, and the subject matter expertise at HAPPY, Miro Johnson has forged an interdisciplinary network that empowers her to see a project through from conception to execution fearlessly. 

“Having the time and space to incubate a project — and letting it fail again and again and again until it gets better — is invaluable,” she says. “I can get something wrong and do it right the next time. Getting it wrong is part of making the art.”

Miro Johnson will premiere a new piece from Patience on November 6, as part of New Music New Haven.