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Attempted murder. Mail order brides. Extortion. Bibles, quantum physics and the Oprah Winfrey Book Club. OK, that last thing has nothing to do with this, but the rest I didn't make up.
By the end of this blog post, you will know all about Mrs Yulia McLeod. Or Townsend. Or whatever anglicised version of her identity this singing spy's assumed this week.
She's tenacious. She's tall poppy. And she is most certainly cuckoo bananas.
But what we all want to know is - what makes a Yulia? How did she get here and where did she come from?
I have theories.
I've been fascinated by Yulia - professionally known under just one name - for several years now. From the first time she walked into my brother's record store asking if he wanted her to sign copies of her album 'Into the West.' I mean no disrespect in saying this, but rather to show an admiration for the ambition, drive, and work ethic which is so obvious here. Also, I never knew anyone could be that guileless. It's almost shocking in today's society, we are so acclimatised to cynicism.
Ever since that day I've really had a soft spot for this little Ruski that could, this wrecking ball of Eastern energy that burst onto our suburban stage like the anti-Hayley Westenra, New Zealand's own wearer of the crossover crown, several years ago.
Westenra was perfect. She emerged into this world, fully formed, that pearl-toned, white sounding high soprano, a homespun Aled Jones, easy to define, a less audacious Charlotte Church, planted into the harmony of a stable home life, supportive family and great friends.
Fame found her when she wasn't looking. And, when the gift was bestowed upon her, she accepted it as naturally and unconsciously as milk to an infant.
Unlike church Westenra did not traverse the hilly terrain of opera/ recording opera arias - well, with the exception of ''O mio babbino caro,' but even Josh Groban's sung that.* Therefore, she never gave her detractors any ammunition and was never encumbered with the label "child opera singer." Westenra knew her brand and she never diverged from it.
She never put a foot wrong in her young career; given excellent advice from the start the path was well trod for her and she followed it to the letter.
Yulia, on the other hand, was a creature forged by fire. Born in the re-conceptualised post-Soviet Volgograd, raised by a single mother, she started life as the underdog and became the girl who wanted to make a huge impact, had the ambition, talent, and drive, but in some strange way lacked the essential qualities to ever reach the juggernaut status of Westenra. It was the intensity of Yulia's very soul, her earnest warmth, largesse of spirit, and inability to be anything other than herself, that meant superstardom of the popera variety somehow always eluded her. She was SMiLE era Brian Wilson trying - and failing - to outbeatle the Beatles.
Like a tragic Chekov play her personal and professional life were beset by sadness. Yulia was every inch more talented than Westenra but just couldn't catch a break.
Creatively and professionally speaking, Yulia was all over the place. The crazy press releases, the flagrant self-promotion, the Tom Cruise-esque sofa jumping, the broadstroke bravado - it all screamed of a woman who was trying too hard to have her voice heard above other voices by those that really matter. Her unflagging, inexhaustable exhortation of self-belief was decried as hollow and wanting when people realised it was all to cover up her own feelings of inadequacy and shaky self esteem (I see a lot of myself in Yulia.) It also manifested itself in a genuine desire to be liked by others (alas, one of the cruel realities of life is that often, the harder you try to coax others to be on your side, the less they feel like doing so.)
Yulia was successful for a time, releasing platinum albums in her home country. She sold more records than the KGB. Her decision to leave her contract with a departing Sony record label exec in 2007 spoke volumes for her character, but unfortunately also was the death knell from which her career never recovered. She wound up in a kind of musical purgatory, playing to grandmothers, schoolkids, and a small but devoted fanbase. Things quickly unraveled further but it would be cruel for me to elaborate here, and I do not blog with cruel intent unless I have just cause.
Looking back, the signs were there. Too much in the Russian/ Europop mold of music making, the strange delivery of the English words, that esoteric and so distinctly Russian musical phrasing which I have such an affinity for. All the things that made her special and unique as an artist but so out of place in the crossover realm where her spaceship landed.
How I feel for Yulia and the disadvantaged position from which she started out in the world, The violent, vanishing father, whose absence most likely left a vacuum of the security of a male role model in her life. The strange post-cold war haze from which she emerged into the Western world.
Where did Yulia fit?
One day Yulia appeared on local talkshow Good Morning. In a seeming attempt to sever all ties in perpetuity with opera and crossover, Yulia delivered an act of self immolation on live TV, the evidence of which appears to have vanished from the internet, and was subsequently savaged by the press.
She couldn't find her audience - too way out for the mainstream to be taken seriously, not weird out enough to carve a new niche, she ended up succeeding only in alienating her fanbase. And so, irrelevant, she retired her wacky ways - and hasn't been seen on our screens since 2008.
The story of popera princesses Yulia and Hayley reminds me of that of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. If you don't remember this pair were at one time the next great white hope of American competitive ice skating.
Folklore will tell of the time in history where Tonya - the dumpy, poor school girl from Oregon - even outskated the Ice Princess Kerrigan. Let the records show that at one time, the dark horse sprang out from the gate and into first place.
And then there was a crowbar. The sickening thud of metal on bone. People screaming. Kerrigan's career ostensibly over.
Who's to say why Harding did what she did that night? It wasn't right, of course. But for whatever reason, she felt Kerrigan's appearance on the professional skating circuit was a blow from which she could never recover. She had to protect herself the only way she knew how - with the only tools that were available in America to someone from her social and economic background.
Her plan failed. What happened, as usually does in these situations, is Kerrigan became the comeback queen. She trained every night and ended up competing in the Olympics, winning the silver medal. Harding, however, vanished almost overnight from skating. The overweight, poor little girls who hoped for so much more put their dreams back to sleep.
In our blindness, we don't see what Yulia sees. Every time we are presented with something that could be unique and original, we want to shy away from it, choosing instead the safer option. There's always that chance the unknown might take us to a better place. If those pioneers before us hadn't tried it, where would we be? But we ourselves don't want to be the instigators - we'd rather watch from the sidelines, or attack with a metaphorical crowbar from behind a mask of anonymity those who keep coming up to the plate to take a swing again and again and again, even though the odds are stacked against them,
In the Olympics of life, Yulia was the runner in the back who could never quite match the speed of Hayley Westenra, though she came close for one brief shining moment. I personally don't think imitating Westenra is what Yulia's best at doing - but I know all too well the folly of attempting to achieve the impossible (that doesn't mean we ever stop trying.)
Failure. A fact of life they never share with you growing up. How do we address as adults the ghosted failures of our childhood? I'm thinking about writing a one-woman show about how other people's failure can resonate so deeply within us for such personal reasons. For me at the moment, blogging isn't something I want to be doing, but because I am dealing with my own personal tragedies in the singing profession, it is an act of catharsis for me. As I write to you I realise I do this because I must. If it wasn't for the act of writing I think I would burst clean out of my skin, I have so much to express.
I do think Yulia is inbuilt for opera - sadly, she does not seem to want to explore it further at this stage, reportedly because someone told her not to.
I sometimes feel like Yulia, a stranger at the gates of paradise.
But no one can stop Yulia from performing. The music forums and reviewers that made vulgar "jokes" about performing sexual acts on Yulia can crawl out from behind their computer screens and kiss my feminist ass.
I don't like Yulia's music - not what she has produced up until now. But I genuinely believe she is a unique artist with vast untapped potential. Not in the same category as Westenra, to whom in vocal style she bears no resemblance whatsoever; in her own right.
Naturally, I also reserve unabashed appreciation for her woolly, big Russian singing voice - as opaque and muddied as the river Volga. Her sound is imprinted with Russia. There's colour and light and depth and height which could be beautifully recognised given the right circumstances. Possibilities. She's truly a formidable singer - with no vocal technique as yet.
But the voice is real, and undeniable.
I would LOVE to see Yulia get some great vocal training. Had she stayed in Russia, and undergone the rigors of their music education system from childhood, they probably would have made a star out of her by now - she would be singing in big halls, wearing beautiful gowns, tea roses strewn at her feet.
But then she might not be the fighter she is today.
But more than this, I hope Yulia gets everything she ever wanted. I'm so glad she chose us.
* not a guarantee.
Music: Stranger in Paradise - Kismet by Borodin
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