Celebrated Indian leader MAHATMA GANDHI is to be immortalised on stage by the English National Opera (ENO).

Composer PHILLIP GLASS will arrange the music for SATYAGRAHA: MK GANDHI IN SOUTH AFRICA, which will form part of the company's 2006/07 season line-up.

The play depicts events from Gandhi's early life when he adopted his belief in passive resistance, and will be performed in Sanskrit - the language Gandhi used on a daily basis.

Newly-appointed ENO artistic director JOHN BERR says, "Satyagraha was written in the 1980s and Philip Glass regards it as one of his best pieces.

"It's about passive resistance, the reaction to identity cards, racial discrimination, a lot of subjects that are quite contemporary now. "

Gandhi was assassinated in 1947, just a year after he won India's independence from the British Empire.

The play opens at London's Coliseum in April next year (07).