Spotswood local Shanul Sharma is performing in a one-off performance with Opera Australia at Arts Centre Melbourne.
The performance, titled Satyagraha, and written by Phillip Glass, will be performed on Saturday, May 13, featuring Mr Sharma as Mahatma Gandhi following his life in South Africa.
The opera is the first of its kind that is written in the classical Indian language of Sankrskirt which Mr Sharma studied in school.
“Over the last two months I have been familiarising myself with the contextual information of the text as well as re familiarising myself with Sanskrit,” he said,
Before Mr Sharma fell in love with opera in 2014, making his opera debut in La Cenerentola, he previously found joy in headbanging his way through life as a heavy metal vocalist.
He heard about opera through youtube around the time the band he was in finished up and felt the stars aligned.
“Opera presented itself to me and I was enamoured by the sound of the operatic voice. As a singer I try to explore my vocal boundaries and this seemed like the ultimate goal to achieve,”he said.
“Opera is the highest form of classical music, dealing with emotions that are of the highest level of any artform, which is what makes it so special for me.”
For Mr Sharma this performance is significant for three deeply personal reasons.
Firstly it’s written in classical Sanskrit , secondly it has text which has been adapted from the Bhagavad Gita- one of the holy scriptures of Hinduism – and thirdly it tells the story about one of his personal heroes.
“That trifecta of reasons makes it a very unique experience for me personally, I feel incredibly blessed to be able to sing in this important work,” he said.
