You played your part, and now we've done ours: we've finally decided on a winner for our "Giselle" giveaway. If you're not up to speed, through the generosity of the Lincoln Center, HuffPost Culture found itself able to offer two tickets to "Giselle," the legendary Paris Opera production currently on stage in New York. We framed the contest around the philosophy of HuffPost's in-the-works GPS For The Soul app, a tool built around the therapeutic value of the arts.
To our question to readers asking how the arts transformed their lives, we received many moving, detailed responses. One particularly spirited one stuck out to us, from Marion Evans, of Shelton, Conn.
Evans is the mother of two sons, both of whom she and her husband adopted. She described to us how as her sons grew into teenagers, she sometimes felt out of her depth, unable to give them what they seemed to need. She was in a funk -- and here's how she came out of it:
One particularly grueling morning, after they were off to school, I turned on the TV. Bustling around the kitchen, doing one chore or another, my attention was divided...until I heard this VOICE, singing. It was then nineteen year old Josh Groban, his first TV appearance. I could not believe my ears! His voice touched my soul and made my spirit soar. I had to hear more! I found out that he was working on his first CD, and I was at the store the day it was released. I listened to it in the parking lot with tears streaming down my face, not trusting myself to drive the car in my emotional state. Here I was, a fifty something wife and mother, a life long lover of music, and I had never been moved in that way by any voice I had ever heard.
Groban, a classically-trained singer, went on to claim plenty more fans, and Evans hasn't stopped listening. Her doctor even coined a term to describe the physical calm she feels when she does -- the "Josh Groban Effect" .
Evans has told us she'll be taking a friend to "Giselle" with her -- a cancer survivor, ballet newbie, and fellow victim of the Groban Effect. To which we say: have fun, ladies! The "Giselle Effect" might just make you kick your heels.