Beginning next week, lyric soprano Ruth Ann Swenson will begin treatment for breast cancer.

In a release issued today, Swenson stated, "While my prognosis is excellent, I know that this will be a difficult time, so I welcome the support of family, friends, colleagues and fans, and I look forward to returning to the Met in the spring."

Swenson will return as Marguerite in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Faust. In April she will sing Cleopatra in the Met's Giulio Cesare.

In 1983, Swenson made her professional debut in San Francisco. Since then, she has performed in national and international opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, L'Opéra National de Paris, Royal Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Hamburg State Opera and the Bavarian State Opera.

She is a graduate of the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia. In 1993, she given the Richard Tucker Award by the Richard Tucker Music Foundation. We wish her a speedy recovery.

According to a news report, last October, Grammy Award-winning opera singer Sylvia McNair had a mammogram that did not indicate the presence of breast cancer. However, within less than a year, McNair went on to be diagnosed with breast cancer, and is currently recovering from a radical mastectomy and chemotherapy.

With more chemotherapy ahead of her, and a new position as a voice instructor at Indiana University, she stated, ""My future is going to be a hybrid combination of teaching and continuing to sing concerts and productions of musical theater pieces. But obviously, my near future is going to involve winning over cancer, which will happen. If cancer has taught me one thing, it's that life is a puzzle with many pieces, and cancer is one of the pieces of life."

McNair, who performed for Pope John Paul II and has sung at the U.S. Supreme Court, won two Grammy Awards - in 1994 for Handel's Semele and in 1996 for The Echoing Air: The Music of Henry Purcell.

In 2002, Sylvia McNair acted as the evening's narrator for Sing for the Cure in a tribute to Kenda Webb, who lost her battle with cancer the year before after serving as co-honorary chairperson for the Sing for the Cure event. Accompanied by Charles Webb on piano, McNair performed a selection of American Songs from Broadway and Bernstein. Slyvia McNair is considered one of the world's greatest living sopranos.

Internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson died Monday in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the age of 52. Hunt Lieberson battled breast cancer in the recent past and had canceled performances in 2005 and 2006 due to back problems -- yet no one was prepared for her death, which occured at her home with her husband by her side. The music world is shocked by her passing. There were no obvious warning signs because Hunt Lieberson often kept her health matters private. No public announcement regarding cause of death has been released.

Known for her beautiful voice -- and a repertoire that ranged from Baroque to contemporary -- the singer, a native of the San Francisco Bay area, began her career as a violist and later became a recitalist, a concert singer, and an operatic performer. She was powerful and polished in her unconventional opera delivery, says Richard Gaddes, director of the Santa Fe opera. She could take her audiences to depths so intense and so true, and her level of commitment will be very difficult to match. She was in a class of her own.