ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an overview of the traditions of Tibet’s indigenous opera genre, followed by the narrative of Ama Lhakpa’s life, a celebrated opera singer, performer and teacher. Born in poverty in 1907, Ama Lhakpa was sold to a wine shop when she was three years old. Beaten when she got them wrong, she learnt her lines by repeating them after her opera troupe master until she had the music and lyrics by heart. She tells of the harsh conditions of her early life as an itinerant performer, her perilous journey to India when she ran away with her husband, her eventual success upon their return as a beloved celebrity performer with the Qomolang Troupe and, finally, a teacher of Tibetan opera.
