High sopranos echoed through the pews, up the altar and poured out of the windows of St. Monica’s Catholic Church on July 1 as Golda Zahra, an up-and-coming opera singer, performed a stirring rendering of “Ave Maria” at the daily mass. Backed by a cellist and a violinist, her voice penetrated the ears and the hearts of both the church community and fans, who had anticipated her return from studying opera in Verona, Italy. A Beverly Hills native with a voice known around the world, Zahra will perform her first official United States solo concert on July 13. At just 25, the vocalist combines the two styles she knows best—opera and Broadway— to share her love for music with audiences.
Though Zahra has seen and performed in some of the most beautiful cities of the world, including Paris, Rome and Tokyo, she’s extremely excited to return to the place where she first started her career. The vocalist began singing professionally at age 12, but she’s been listening to opera her entire life. She attributes this to her parents, who would take her to watch performances when she was a young child. By age 4, she began to play the piano and in elementary school, she sang in the Beverly Vista School (now Beverly Vista Middle School) choir. After that, she joined the independent study program at Beverly Hills High School so that she could spend extra time practicing singing and traveling to performances. Throughout her early life, she was also in musicals, and she performed songs from Broadway, but she decided to pursue opera full time so that she could share a style of music with the world that she feels is underappreciated.
