 If during the past two years you had been sitting in the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, waiting with rising anticipation as its famously plush red velvet curtains peeled slowly back to reveal its huge 45 sq. ft.stage, you would have been witnessing a bit of Sri Lankan musical history in the making. In 2006, Kishani Jayasinghe became the first Sri Lankan singer ever to perform on the main stage of the premier opera house of the Western world. Kishani was one of only four singers selected from hundreds of applicants worldwide to be part of the ROH’s Jette Parker Young Artists Programme.
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The uneven stone steps cut into the rock lead down to the modest little house where tragedy has laid its mark. An elderly man stands at the doorway, greeting visitors with trembling hands, his eyes blinded by grief. His only son has died a cruel and unnecessary death and he must now carry out the funeral rites for his beloved child, in the home where he was raised. Inside, a family grieves for the loss of a son, brother, husband – a doctor who might have been a gift to their community. It was here, in the rural village of Kotigepitiya in Kotmale that Dr. S.W. Palitha Pathmakumara, grew up with his parents and two younger sisters.