Shai Terry more aware of her roots in Germany

"My voice is really who I am," says Shai Terry. "This is the complete Shai — my voice, my concerts, my performances," she adds with a winning smile.

People who hear and see the young mezzo-soprano from Israel, for instance as Carmen on the stage of the National Theater in Belgrade, would readily agree with her self-assessment.

Her stage presence in the role of Carmen is striking, even in a 2021 YouTube video of modest quality in terms of sound and visuals. "Carmen is Carmen. And I think I can be Carmen, too," she says confidently.

An operatic voice at 13

Shai Terry is a natural. When she was 13, her first singing teacher told her she had a "real operatic voice," the singer recalls. To an outsider, her path from her early beginnings to her concert exam studies at the Mainz Academy of Music appears logical — effortless even. But it wasn't always easy. The singer works hard for her dream of one day performing on the world's stages as an opera singer.

Born in September 1991, she grew up in the small Israeli coastal village of Shavai Zion. Her father and two sisters enjoyed singing, but Terry was the first in the family who aimed to make music her profession.

She had harbored dreams of becoming a singer early on, but needed an "extra signal from the universe" Terry says. The fact that encouragement came from the military is probably a special Israeli feature. In Israel, women and men alike are called up for conscription.

The young woman was one of three singers to be accepted into the military orchestra at the time, which meant singing for the Israeli president and performing on stage during extended international trips. This proved to be the validation she needed about her ambition.

Invitation to Germany

During a master class in Jerusalem in 2017, she met Claudia Eder, a vocal coach from the Mainz School of Music, who invited her to come to Germany and join her class. "A year later, I moved to Germany," Shai Terry recalls.

She completed her Master's degree at the Mainz music school and is now preparing for her concert exam. Terry performs, too, for instance in the glamorous "Kol Esperanza" music gala by Israeli composer and producer Tomer Adaddi, organized by the Israeli-American foundation of the same name, and as a guest in Jewish communities throughout Germany, where she doesn't focus on opera as much as on songs from her native Israel.

More aware of her roots

Singing in Hebrew in Germany feels natural to her, she says, adding she reaches people who don't know the language at all. She is "touched and moved" when people come up to her after a concert with tears in their eyes, saying her voice made them cry, even if they did not know the songs or understand the words.

Terry is one of many young Israelis with artistic ambitions who are drawn to Germany, and in particular to Berlin. "Israel's art and cultural scene is beautiful and really good, but also small, we all know that," she says.

Far from home, Shai Terry says she is more aware of her Israeli Jewish roots. Although she is not a believer, she regularly celebrates the Sabbath again and thinks of her family, often asking friends to join in so she could "teach them the tradition."

Third generation Holocaust survivor

Shai Terry is aware that she belongs to the third generation of Holocaust survivors. German history and especially the Holocaust came up time and again in conversations with her grandparents and parents in Israel. In Germany, she strives to maintain her impartiality, despite everything she knows about that dark chapter of history.

Only once was she confronted with the long shadows of the past, and that was at a concert in the heavily guarded synagogue in Mainz just after the deadly attack on the synagogue in Halle in October 2019. "That's when I was scared, that was the first time I didn't go on stage so freely," she says.

All the same, Shai Terry has made Mainz her home, it is where she studies, and where her friends and fiancé live. She wants to stay, she says without hesitation. She hopes that someday her "greatest dream" will come true; namely to sing as Carmen and in other major roles on the world's leading opera stages.

This article was originally written in German.