South African opera has developed its own uniquely local style -- both in the make-up of its casts and its dramatic themes -- in the three decades since the end of apartheid, experts argue.
JOHANNESBURG -
The grandfather of it all is Italian-born Angelo Gobbato, a former singer who co-founded the company five years after apartheid ended and was honoured in March with a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to South African opera.When the company was starting out, Gobbato staged Donizetti's dramatic"Lucia di Lammermoor" with lead singers brought in from abroad.
"This was very unusual because at the Cape Town opera school we had so-called coloured students -- non-white students -- but no black students."His students, who include the internationally acclaimed Pretty Yende and Levy Sekgapane, often came from community choirs trained in the Western signing fashion."They responded very naturally to opera and they wanted to sing it," said Gobbato, who has now retired.
Opera in South Africa was once a niche performing art with mainly white audiences, said soprano Brittany Smith, the tragic heroine in this year's run of"Lucia di Lammermoor". The dramatic themes of opera are relevant to today's South Africa, said her co-star Conroy Scott, a deep baritone who developed his voice in church choirs. "It deals with real issues, with human emotion. It deals with issues that haven't really gone away -- politics, sex, violence, child abuse, death," the 43-year-old added.
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