Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Donald Robert Shanks AO OBE was an Australian bass-baritone singer who sang over 65 principal roles with Opera Australia and other companies in Australia and overseas. Donald Shanks was born in Brisbane, Queensland, and started singing in church choirs. He went to the prestigious Brisbane State High School. His first experience of a staged work was Gilbert and Sullivan s The Mikado, the opera with which he also chose to end his career in 2004. He joined the Elizabethan Theatre Trust Opera Company in 1964, aged 23. Over the years, he built a reputation as one of the most versatile figures in Australian opera, performing in all the major comic roles, from the title role in Don Pasquale and Bartolo in The Marriage of Figaro, to The Italian Girl in Algiers to bel canto roles such as Lucia di Lammermoor and Norma, to the key dramatic roles, particularly in Wagner heavyweights such as Tannhäuser, Lohengrin and Tristan und Isolde