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A fly on the wall of Shanul Sharma’s shower would have an interesting experience: in the time it takes between stepping under the water and towelling off, Sharma often sings music from Bollywood, heavy metal and opera. It’s an unusual combination, but each of the three musical forms has, in turn, been life-shaping for the young tenor.
Shanul Sharma credits his “refusal to scream” during his heavy metal days with allowing him to cross to opera.Credit: Chris Hopkins
The educated fly would no doubt notice the operatic flavour to all the styles, for that is where Sharma has settled and now has a flourishing career. On Saturday, this career will take a major step forward when he sings the role of Mahatma Gandhi in Opera Australia’s concert performance of Satyagraha by Philip Glass at Hamer Hall.
Sharma’s big breakthrough came in 2019, when he played Count Libenskof in Melbourne for OA’s Il Viaggio a Reims, a role that sits so high in the voice that then OA artistic director Lyndon Terracini said few tenors could attempt it. Sharma’s masterly rendition saw him reprise the role for the Bolshoi Opera before the pandemic shut the door on opportunities.
Sharma was raised in India where he says Bollywood is as ingrained as cricket – the two cultural constants. He came to Australia at 19 to study IT, helped form a heavy metal band and spent the best part of a decade as its lead singer, performing up and down the east coast and releasing three albums.
He credits his “refusal to scream” during his heavy metal days with allowing him to cross to opera, and within five years he won the prestigious Rossini International Award. “Screaming uses a type of musculature which is not conducive to emitting a pure sound,” Sharma says.
Shanul Sharma performing as the lead vocalist for +eRa+ on tour in Paris.Credit: Cédric le Dantec
The voice production in rock and opera is much the same. “The difference in technique is that rock and roll is like T20 cricket and opera is like a full-blown test match. You have to have stamina in a different way. The management of breath is different in opera because you have to hold longer phrases, whereas in rock you can get by because of everything that is going on around you but you need more immediate energy.
“As soon as you make a note longer, the quality of the note changes, it automatically becomes more operatic, and you have to make adjustments in the vocal tract, but that is adding pepper and spice to something that is already there.”
At the end of 2022 Sharma got to combine his loves pleasurably in a European tour with noted new age rock group +eRa+, whose members have sold tens of millions of albums. “I was the opera singer on that tour and I was able to combine my loves for heavy metal and opera. The bottle was heavy metal but the wine was opera.”
Satyagraha presents a new set of challenges but, again, Sharma is uniquely placed to meet them. For example, the opera is in Sanskrit (the holy language of Hindu Scriptures), and Sharma studied it in school so he can both read it and pronounce it correctly – something to which, he says, OA has paid great attention.
Sian Sharp as Marchesa Melibea and Shanul Sharma as Conte di Libenskof in Opera Australia’s production of Il Viaggio a Reims.Credit: Prudence Upton
The opera tells the story of how Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi became Mahatma Gandhi, Sharma explains. Mahatma means great soul. Satyagraha is the non-violent movement of civil disobedience Gandhi founded, but his struggle began in South Africa when, as a non-white person, he was removed from a train because he was in first class, though he had a valid ticket, which is the story of the opera.
Gandhi – who inspired Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, among others – decided he had to stand up, but peaceably. “He was a firm believer that an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind,” Sharma says.
“This is the most important thing I’ve ever done, mainly because it’s a very real character that is close to my heart. There are only eight notes, only voice and a little bit of accompaniment, and in my mind that is Gandhi’s intellect transforming. How does something inspire a successful lawyer to stand up for an entire nation and say this is not right, I will lead the charge?”
The opera has an unusual start, with no note, no instrument and one voice, Gandhi reciting verses from the Bhagavad Gita, Sharma says. “The music is absolutely gorgeous; it’s very pensive, very thought-provoking and also very emotional for me. It’s a great privilege and honour for me as an Indian Australian.”
Shanul Sharma will be performing Satyagraha in concert at Hamer Hall on May 13.
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