‘People could hear me at last’: how an Italian singer lost her voice – and found it again by screaming

‘Even now, I still don’t remember what my normal voice sounded like’ … Stefania ‘Alos’ Pedretti, right, and Bruno Dorella AKA OvO. Photograph: Annapaola Martin

When Stefania “Alos” Pedretti woke from a two-week coma on 9 January 2022, her doctor presented her with bad news. She was suffering from severe encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain possibly caused by her body’s autoimmune response to the breast cancer she had been diagnosed with a few months earlier.

For the guitarist and singer Pedretti, however, what came next was even worse. After being intubated in her comatose state, her vocal cords were unable to close and produce sound, meaning that for months she was unable to speak.