Aussie darling, I bet you can’t hit a single proper oporadic note. Freddy Mercury said it with a laugh, wine glass in hand, at a private party in London. The entire room erupted in laughter. Everyone knew Azie Osborne was the prince of darkness, not the prince of opera. But what Aussie did next left Freddy Mercury in tears and revealed a secret about Aussy’s mother that no one knew.

It was May 14th, 1983 at a private venue in Kensington, London. The party was intimate, exclusive, maybe 60 people total, all musicians and close friends, celebrating the early planning stages of what would eventually become Live Aid. Queen had just finished their Hot Space tour, and Azie was riding high on the success of Bark at the Moon.

The atmosphere was relaxed, the kind of night where legends could let their guard down, share stories, and just be human beings who happen to make extraordinary music. Uh Freddy Mercury was holding court at the grand piano in the corner, as he often did at these gatherings. He’d been playing bits and pieces of various songs, showing off, entertaining, being quintessentially Freddy.

Brian May and Roger Taylor were nearby, nursing drinks and laughing at Freddy’s theatrical commentary about other musicians in the room. Azie Osborne sat in a corner booth with Sharon, characteristically quiet. He’d never been comfortable at these industry parties. Too much small talk, too many egos. Sharon kept him grounded, her hand resting on his arm, occasionally whispering something that would make him smile.

They were watching Freddy perform, appreciating the show like everyone else. Freddy launched into Bohemian raps city because of course he did. The room gradually quieted as people recognized the opening notes. When he reached the oporadic section, his voice soared through the complicated vocal arrangements, hitting notes that seemed impossible for a human throat to produce.

It was breathtaking, even for a room full of professional musicians who’d seen it all. As the song ended, someone in the crowd shouted, “No one else in this room could sing that.” There was laughter and agreement. Freddy stood, took a theatrical bow, and scanned the room with that mischievous glint in his eye that everyone who knew him recognized as trouble.

His gaze landed on Azie. Speaking of which, Freddy said loud enough for everyone to hear. Aussie, darling, can you sing opera? The room burst into laughter. Azie looked up caught off guard. What? Opera, dear? Freddy continued, walking toward Aussy’s table. You know the proper singing, not just the wonderful screaming you do, though I do love your screaming, don’t get me wrong.

More laughter. Azie smiled, but there was something in his eyes that Sharon immediately noticed. She knew that look. That was Aussy’s hurt look. The one he tried to hide behind humor. I bet you can’t hit a single proper oporadic note, Freddy said, still playful but pushing. The prince of darkness versus the prince of opera.

What do you say? Aussie was quiet for a long moment. Too long. The laughter in the room began to fade as people sensed the energy shifting. Sharon leaned in and whispered something in Azy’s ear. Whatever she said made him sit up straighter. “How much you want to bet, Freddy?” Ozie asked, his voice quiet but clear.

Freddy’s eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t expected Aussie to engage. “Well, I suppose we’re betting pride, darling. Just pride. the most valuable currency in rock and roll. But something in Aussy’s eyes told Freddy this wasn’t just another rock and roll dare. This was personal. Azie stood up slowly. Give me 20 minutes, he said. 20 minutes for what? Freddy asked genuinely confused.

Now to warm up, Aussie replied. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right. The room went completely silent. No one had expected Aussie to accept, let alone take it seriously. Azie walked out of the main room and disappeared down a hallway toward the private areas. Sharon remained seated, her expression unreadable. Brian May leaned over to Freddy.

What just happened? I have absolutely no idea, Freddy admitted. He’s having us on surely, but Sharon shook her head. No, she said quietly. He’s not. 20 minutes felt like an eternity. The party tried to resume, but everyone was distracted, wondering what Aussie was doing. Some people speculated he was just hiding, that he’d slip out the back and avoid the whole thing.

Others thought he might come back and do some kind of comedy bit. No one, not even Sharon, knew exactly what to expect. When Azie walked back into that room, his face had changed. The wild man was gone. In his place stood someone no one recognized. He looked vulnerable, exposed, almost fragile. He walked straight to the piano where Freddy still stood.

Play the opera section from Bohemian Raps City. Azie said quietly. Freddy stared at him. You’re serious. Dead serious. Freddy sat down at the piano. His theatrical persona momentarily suspended. The room gathered around, everyone wanting to witness whatever was about to happen. You could have heard a pin drop. Freddy’s fingers touched the keys and the familiar melody began.

When the moment came, Azie closed his eyes. His body language changed completely. His shoulders dropped. His breathing deepened. And then he sang, “Scaramush, Scaramush, will you do the fandango?” The voice that came out of Azie Osborne was not the voice anyone expected. It was controlled, powerful, technically precise.

It was oporadic, not metal, not rock. Opera, real, trained, beautiful opera. Freddy’s hands faltered on the keys for just a second, but he recovered, his eyes wide with shock. He kept playing, but he couldn’t stop staring at Azie. Brian May’s mouth literally fell open. Roger Taylor set down his drink. The entire room was frozen.

Azie continued, his voice building. Thunderbolt and lightning very, very frightening me. The VB was perfect. The breath control was impeccable. This wasn’t a rock singer pretending. This was someone who had been trained. When he reached the high notes, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Magnificico, Azy’s voice soared. He held the final note, pure and clear and impossibly sustained before it faded into silence. Azie opened his eyes.

The room remained silent for three full seconds. Then it erupted. People jumped to their feet, applauding, shouting, utterly stunned by what they just witnessed. But Freddy wasn’t clapping. He was crying. Tears streamed down his face as he stared at Aussie. And he needed to know where did Aussie Osborne learn to sing like that.

Aussie, Freddy said, his voice shaking. How? Where did you learn that? Azie sat down heavily on the piano bench next to Freddy. Sharon came over and put her hand on his shoulder. He looked exhausted, emotionally drained, like singing those notes had cost him something deeper than breath. “My mom,” Ozie said quietly.

The room leaned in to hear him. My mom loved opera. Lillian Osborne had worked in a factory in Birmingham her entire adult life. She assembled car parts on a production line, standing for 10 hours a day, 6 days a week for wages that barely kept the family fed. They lived in a tiny house in Aston, one of Birmingham’s poorest neighborhoods, with six children crammed into three small bedrooms.

But Lillian had a secret love, opera. She would listen to BBC radio broadcasts whenever she could, usually late at night after everyone had gone to bed. She’d close her eyes and let Maria Callus or Pavaroti transport her away from the factory floors and the endless struggle. She dreamed of seeing an opera live just once, but tickets were impossibly expensive.

That dream would never be more than a dream. Young John Osborne, who would become Azie, knew about his mother’s love for music. When he started getting into rock and roll as a teenager, forming bands and making noise that the neighbors hated, his mother supported him completely. Even when his father was skeptical, even when money was tight and musical equipment seemed like a foolish expense, Lillian defended her son.

“He’s got music in his soul, Jack,” she’d tell Azy’s father. “Just like me.” But she made him promise something. John, she said one evening when he was 16 after he’d come home excited about his new band. I want you to promise me something. Learn to sing properly. Not just scream, though that’s fine, too. But really sing. Learn the technique.

Learn how to use your voice as an instrument. Mom, I’m in a rock band, Azie had protested. We don’t do that proper singing stuff. Promise me anyway, she’d insisted. One day you might want to, and I want to know you can. He’d promised the way teenagers promise their mothers things they don’t really understand.

Then life happened. Black Sabbath exploded. Fame, drugs, chaos. The 1970s became a blur of excess and darkness. The promise faded. But in 1976, during a rare moment of clarity between tours, Azie remembered, “He was home in Birmingham visiting his mother, and she looked tired, more tired than usual. She was only in her 50s, but the factory work had aged her.

Mom, he’d said, “Remember when you made me promise to learn to sing properly?” She’d smiled. “That was years ago, John. Don’t worry about it.” “No,” he’d said. “I want to keep my promise.” So Azie did something almost no one knew about. While Black Sabbath was between albums, he hired a private vocal coach.

not for rock techniques, for opera, for classical training. He practiced in secret, telling almost no one because it wasn’t cool. It wasn’t metal. It wasn’t the image. But he did it for her. For 2 years, whenever he had time, he worked on it. He learned breath control, proper technique, how to access different parts of his voice he’d never used before.

His coach was amazed. “You have a natural gift,” she told him. “You could have been an opera singer.” But Azie never performed it. He’d planned to one day. He’d imagined surprising his mother, maybe taking her to see an opera, and then revealing that he could do it, too. But time slipped away. Black Sabbath’s chaos intensified.

The drinking and drugs got worse. The plan never materialized. In 1982, Lillian Osborne was diagnosed with cancer. It was aggressive, and the prognosis wasn’t good. Azie, fresh off being fired from Black Sabbath and spiraling into addiction, flew home immediately. He sat beside her hospital bed, this woman who had given him everything, and felt completely helpless.

One afternoon, when it was just the two of them, she was drifting in and out of consciousness, struggling with pain. Azie leaned close. “Mom,” he whispered. “I kept my promise. I learned to sing like you wanted properly.” Her eyes opened slightly. “Did you love?” “Yeah, can I show you?” She nodded weakly. Right there in that hospital room with just his mother as his audience, Azie sang.

He sang an Arya from Laboam, one of her favorites. His voice, trained and strong despite years of abuse, filled the small room. The nurses outside stopped and listened. Other patients in nearby rooms went quiet. When he finished, Lillian had tears streaming down her face. That was beautiful, John. You kept your promise. You learned to sing. She died the next day.

“Since that day in the hospital,” Azie told Freddy in the stunned room in London. “I never sang opera in front of anyone. It was too painful. It was hers. It was ours. I couldn’t share it.” His voice broke. But tonight, when you challenged me, when you laughed, I got angry. And then I heard her voice in my head.

“Show them, John. Show them what I taught you. Don’t hide your light.” Freddy Mercury stood and pulled Ozie into a tight embrace. Both men were crying now and no one in that room was ashamed of it. “Your mother gave you a gift, darling,” Freddy said, his voice thick. “Not just the voice, the courage to be vulnerable, to be beautiful as well as dark.

” “Brian May approached, his own eyes wet. That was extraordinary, Azie. Genuinely extraordinary.” Azie wiped his eyes. She worked in a factory all her life. She loved opera, but never got to see one live. Too expensive. She made me promise I’d learn to sing properly. Not for fame, for beauty, for art. After she died, I couldn’t. It hurt too much.

But she would have wanted me to share it. The party transformed after that. It wasn’t about egos or industry politics anymore. It became a conversation about mothers, about the sacrifices they make, about the dreams they pass to their children. Freddy talked about his own mother, Jer Bulsara, and how she’d supported his musical ambitions despite her traditional Parsy background.

Others shared their stories. The evening became something sacred. Before the night ended, Freddy pulled Azie aside. “Would you record this with me?” he asked. “One song, opera and rock combined for our mothers.” Azie hesitated. “Freddy, I don’t know.” “Think about it,” Freddy said. we could create something beautiful, something that honors them.

6 months later, in a private studio, Aussie and Freddy recorded a song. It was never released commercially. Freddy kept it in his personal archives, and Azie had a copy made. They gave recordings to their mother’s families. It remained a secret between them. Years later, shortly before Freddy died of AIDS in 1991, he told Jim Hutton, his partner, “That recording with Azie is my favorite thing I ever did.

Not the most famous, not the most successful, but the most honest. We sang for our mothers. That’s the purest art can be.” In 2018, during the promotion for the Bohemian Raps City film, Brian May shared this story publicly for the first time. He revealed that the recording existed in Freddy’s archives. Azie, now in his 70s, gave permission for it to be released with all proceeds going to opera education programs for underprivileged children.

The Lillian Osborne and Jar Bulsara Memorial Fund was established. It provides free opera lessons and tickets to children whose families can’t afford them. To date, it has helped over 10,000 children experience the art form that two workingclass mothers loved but could rarely access. Freddy didn’t just challenge me that night, Azie said in a 2019 interview.

He gave me permission to honor my mom publicly. He showed me that being the prince of darkness doesn’t mean hiding your light. My mom gave me a gift and Freddy helped me share it with the world. A joke between two legends became a tribute to two mothers. A secret recording that changed lives and a reminder that sometimes the most metal thing you can do is sing opera for your mom.

Freddy Mercury challenged Aussie Osborne that night, but what they both discovered was that behind every rock star is a child who just wanted to make their mother proud.