Vengeance. Rape. Murder. Bloodshed. Violence. Her short, chaotic  life was indeed the stuff of melodrama, and several artistic ventures have tried to capture its turbulence. One of the most successful was Shekhar Kapur’s memorable film ‘Bandit Queen’ which won international fame for both the director and for Seema Biswas’s powerful portrayal.

There is a continuing fascination with Phoolan Devi’s life, and in her latest avatar she is the central figure in an opera. ‘Phoolan Devi: The Bandit Queen’ is a multi-media chamber opera in the making, co-sponsored by the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC) and Da Capo Chamber Players. It is composed by Shirish Korde, has a libretto by Anushree Roy and is directed by Tom Diamond, with choreography by Nandini Sikand.

On a recent evening in Manhattan, Aroon Shivdasani, the Director of IAAC, had invited several New Yorkers to the Saffron Art Space to meet with the creative team behind the opera, over wine and cheese.

“Phoolan Devi was born in abject poverty, she was sold as a child bride, was abused, gang raped, victimized and finally abducted by bandits and became a bandit queen herself,” said Shivdasani.  ”She saw herself as a Robin Hood – as a Durga – her life was violent, not necessarily out of  choice but so much violence was done to her that she herself got the thirst for violence.”

Shirish Korde, a noted composer, spent his early years in East Africa so was already familiar with Indian and African music before studying Western music in the US, and is currently a Professor of Music at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. He has several operatic works to his credit,  including ‘Chitra’ and ‘Rasa’, in which he combines Indian instruments with Western orchestral music.

Korde, who has received several arts grants, is working on various projects including a new song cycle, KA, for the Boston Musica Viva, a work for cello and voice – Anusvara, Fifith Prism for the cellist Jan Müller-Szerwas and Deepti Navaratna, soprano. His guitar concerto Nada Ananda was recently released on CD.

Violence, Retribution, Transformation, Myth, Class…

The Bandit Queen has been on his mind for several years. “The themes in her life : violence, retribution, transformation, myth, class were all fascinating…in fact,  ideal dramatic material for an opera,” he says. “Phoolan Devi’s story raises difficult and universal questions about violence and women. I felt that no single vocal style – opera, jazz, etc. – could accurately represent her complex character,” he says.  So the music draws from many cultures and embraces opera, classical music, jazz, hip hop, folk music from Rajasthan and Vedic chants. The spoken word includes poems by Pablo Neruda, the Iraqi poet Rabia and the Pakistani poet Faiz.

Indeed, the cast is a mix of West and East and from Canada and the US. The Toronto-based soprano Zorana Sadiq, who is a Pakistani-Canadian,  plays Phoolan Devi. “What’s beautiful about her voice is that she can cross over into jazz, into Carnatic music or popular music,” says Korde. Sadiq has won high praise in the role of Phoolan Devi in a staged performance in Boston and has also played  Margaret Trudeau in Trudeau: Long Path, Shining March for the World Stage Festival, Laurette in Opera New York’s Gianni Schicchi, and Ariane in R. Murray Schafer’s opera The Enchanted Forest, among others.

“Musically, singing the role of the Phoolan Devi is quite challenging,” said Zorana Sadiq from Ontario. ” Shirish’s compositional style requires that I sing a large range of vocal styles, from Western Classical to the Carnatic to the ghazals of Pakistan.  As I prepare for this, I must be flexible with all of these very different styles of vocalization.”