(In 1997, an unsuccessful surgical procedure left Julie Andrews’ already damaged voice beyond repair.) More than the physical risk, though, singers feared the damage to their careers that could follow if word got out. For years, vocal cord microsurgery had been considered risky. To most observers, it was a cheering comeback story, but for a handful of medical specialists it was a watershed moment.

In her acceptance speech for best pop solo performance, she thanked Zeitels for restoring her voice. On 12 February 2012, three months after her surgery, Adele swept up six awards at the Grammys, including album of the year and song of the year. If he pierced that, he told me, there would be no way to preserve the power and suppleness of her voice. Dig too deep, Zeitels knew, and he would risk damaging the superficial lamina propria, the soft, pliable underlayer of Adele’s vocal cords. You can’t let the instruments touch any healthy tissue. The margin for error in such surgeries is measured in fractions of a millimetre. With a second set of forceps he pulled out the gooey, infected mass, and zapped the remaining haemorrhaged surface with a laser to stop the bleeding and prevent scarring. Zeitels carefully snipped the layer with a scalpel, and then, with forceps, pulled back the tissue like a flap, exposing the polyp below. In this operation, the surgeon wields miniature scalpels and forceps attached to foot-long poles that are guided down the throat to excise whatever damaged tissue is robbing the vocal cords of their elasticity, and depriving the voice of its natural timbre, range and clarity.Īdele’s surgeon, Dr Steven Zeitels, was after a nasty polyp that had formed under her epithelium, the thin outer layer of the vocal cord. In order to repair the injury, she underwent an incredibly delicate, high-risk medical intervention: vocal cord microsurgery. Six years earlier, she had suffered a haemorrhage to her vocal cords after singing live on a French radio program. Though only 29, Adele had been here before.

Big l put it on vocals