JOHANNESBURG: In the three decades since the end of apartheid, South African opera has developed its own uniquely local style – both in its cast and its dramatic themes, experts say.
With South African stars shining on the international stage, opera has flourished since racial barriers were abolished in 1994, drawing talent from the country’s great choral traditions to carve out an important place in a vastly diverse cultural landscape.
Much of the change has come from the 25-year-old Cape Town Opera, which is considered Africa’s most successful troupe.
The granddaddy of it all is Italian-born Angelo Gobbato, a former singer who co-founded the company five years after the end of apartheid and was honored in March.
When the company started, Gobbato staged Donizetti’s dramatic “Lucia di Lammermoor” with principal singers brought in from abroad.
The cast of the same opera’s just-concluded 25th birthday run was all South African and featured only one white singer – an illustration of the changes, he said.
After the white minority government was abolished, “suddenly we saw a lot of interest from black students who wanted to be trained in opera,” Gobbato, 81, told AFP.
His students, who include the internationally renowned Pretty Yende and Levy Sekgapane, often came from community choirs trained in the Western sign style. “They responded very naturally to the opera and wanted to sing it,” said Gobbato, who is now retired.
And as the actors increasingly represent the racial makeup of South Africa, so do the audience.
Opera in South Africa was once a niche art form with a predominantly white audience, said soprano Brittany Smith, the tragic heroine of this year’s “Lucia di Lammermoor.”
Now “Cape Town Opera is at the forefront of reintroducing opera and making it accessible to everyone, and that makes us relevant,” the 29-year-old told AFP as he prepared for a rehearsal at the Nelson Mandela Theatre.
Smith highlighted the company’s outreach program, which sends artists into schools and communities to show young people what it’s all about.
The opera’s dramatic themes are relevant to South Africa today, said its performer Conroy Scott, a deep baritone who developed his voice in church choirs.
Post-apartheid productions of European operatic classics created a form that is distinctly South African in its portrayal of characters and music, with a setting that is recognizable to local audiences, critic and author Wayne Muller has argued.
“La Boheme” was set in an area of Cape Town’s sixth district bulldozed by apartheid authorities, Macbeth was played as a leader of Central African militants and Porgy and Bess professed their love in the shacks of Soweto, he wrote in his 2023 book. Cities: The Voice of Criticism”.
“This process of transformation of art and opera in South Africa is by no means over,” Muller said.
