2022 Season Archives - Cape Town Opera

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Daniel — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 10:18:16 +0000

Under the guidance of Chorus Master Marvin Kernelle, the iconic Cape Town Opera Chorus opens our season with a rousing tribute to the world’s most iconic opera choruses. Building on the worldwide success of Grace Notes and African Angels, this homage to operatic giants contains many cherished operatic choruses, including the much-loved Humming, Anvil, Slave and Bridal Choruses as well as the ever-popular Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

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Bon Appétit!

Daniel — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 10:16:19 +0000

Bon Appétit!, a captivating pairing of music and food, is brought to you from the Vineyard Hotel show kitchen. The flavours of Bernstein’s “La Bonne Cuisine: Four Recipes for Voice and Piano”, Bach’s unique secular Coffee Cantata Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (“be still, stop chattering”) and others will serve as hors d’oeuvres and main course. Dessert is Julia Child’s “deliciously decadent” chocolate cake recipe, reincarnated as a musical monologue by American Composer Lee Hoiby from a transcript of an episode of “The French Chef”. Join Chef Mike Basset and Cape Town Opera on this exciting culinary journey with musical direction from José Dias.

Cast: Janellé Visagie (guest artist) as well as Jodie Khan, Ané Pretorius, Siphesihle Mdena, Garth Delport, Van Wyk Venter and Alida Stoman all members of Cape Town Opera’s Young Artists programme and the Cape Town Opera Chorus.

We thank the City of Cape Town for their support of CTO’s Young Artists.

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Messiah

Daniel — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 10:14:33 +0000

Cape Town Opera and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, two cultural pillars of South Africa, join forces for Easter to present Handel’s Messiah at Paarl’s historic Toringkerk. The production, under the baton of Maestro Brandon Phillips, features Cape Town Opera Soloists, Young Artists and Chorus. The Toringkerk’s extraordinary Norman and Beards organ, manufactured in 1906 in Norwich, England, will be played by Mario Nell.

Soprano: Ané Pretorius
Alto: Nonhlanhla Yende
Tenor: Siphesihle Mdena
Bass: Lwazi Dlamini

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Songbook

Daniel — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 10:12:42 +0000

Join us as we explore and celebrate the humour, pathos and deep human feeling embedded in the folk songs of Great Britain and Ireland. Belying their value as historical and cultural records passed from generation to generation, folk songs are often pressed into service as encores rather than taking centre stage; we hope to set that right with this concert! Experience the range of emotions that bubble under the surface of these seemingly simple yet often deeply complex songs. Brought to extraordinary life and elevated into the realm of art song by composers such as Britten, Hughes, Gurney, Vaughan Williams and Quilter, and poets such as Yeats, Joyce, Moore, Burns, Shakespeare and Stevenson, the programme contains gems such as The Stuttering Lovers, I Will Walk With My Love, Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye!, Down by the Salley Gardens, The Last Rose of Summer, The Foggy, Foggy Dew, Little Sir William, The Ash Grove, The Miller of Dee, along with Ivor Novello favourites Waltz of My Heart, I Can Give You the Starlight and Glamorous Night. The concert features internationally acclaimed opera star William Berger (baritone) and Cape Town Opera Soloists Brittany Smith (soprano) and Ané Pretorius (soprano), with Cape Town Opera Managing Director Alex Gabriel at the piano.

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Le Nozze Di Figaro

Daniel — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 10:09:24 +0000

Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro shaped the future of opera buffa and is in many ways the perfect opera. Continuing the story of the characters from Il Barbiere di Siviglia, this masterpiece offers a good dollop of farce, adultery, role-playing and cunning scheming. It also touches on abuse and mental health issues, seen in the Countess’s poignant navigation of her fracturing marriage. Presented in collaboration with Sempre Opera, with a fantastic South African cast featuring Conroy Scott as Figaro, Brittany Smith as Susanna, William Berger as Count Almaviva, Siphamandla Moyake as Countess Rosina, Megan Kahts as Cherubino, Monica Mhangwana as Marcellina, Lwazi Dlamini as Bartolo, Siphesihle Mdena as Basilio/Don Curzio, Alida Stoman as Barbarina and Rouel Beukes as Antonio together with the award-winning Cape Town Opera Chorus under the direction of chorus master Marvin Kernelle.

This much-loved opera will be directed by Magdalene Minnaar, with set and costume design by Maritha Visagie and Rabia Davids and movement direction by Fiona du Plooy. The Cape Town Pops Orchestra will be conducted by Schalk van der Merwe. This production is proudly sponsored by the City of Cape Town.

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L’elisir D’amore Touring Production

Daniel — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 10:04:26 +0000

The comic opera The Elixir of Love, composed by bel canto genius Gaetano Donizetti, follows the beautiful Adina and her charming yet clumsy admirer, Nemorino, through their tumultuous and often capricious courtship. With the (often misguided) guiding hand of ‘Doctor’ Dulcamara’s ‘elixir’, Nemorino accesses super-human courage to win his muse’s heart.

The cast features Puerto Rican Tenor Juan Hernández as Nemorino, Brittany Smith as Adina, Conroy Scott as Doctor Dulcamara, Van Wyk Venter as Belcore and Linda Nteleza as Giannetta. The production is directed by Magdalene Minnaar, with set design by Maritha Visagie, costume design by Rabia Davids and movement direction by Fiona du Plooy. The piano reduction of the orchestral score will be played by pianist José Dias.

With thanks to the City of Cape Town and the Judith Neilson Head Trust for their generous support and to Ian Burgess-Simpson Pianos for providing a wonderful Kawai GL-20 piano for the performances.

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Alcina

Daniel — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 10:00:18 +0000

A riveting storyline full of magic, seduction, betrayal and intrigue. George Frideric Handel’s Alcina is set on a magical island, where Alcina, a powerful sorceress, lives with her sister Morgana. She enchants and seduces any man who dares to set foot on her island and then transforms them into wild animals, plants or stones when she tires of them. A brave heroine by the name of Bradamante travels to the island in disguise in an attempt to rescue her enchanted fiancé Ruggiero.

Directed by one of South Africa’s foremost theatre directors, Matthew Wild, with set and lighting design by Wilhelm Disbergen, Alcina is a collaboration between Cape Town Opera and the University of Cape Town Opera School. The Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra will be conducted by Jeremy Silver.

With thanks to the National Department of Sports, Arts and Culture for their generous support.

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One In Three

Daniel — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 09:57:46 +0000

Cape Town Opera stands against gender-based violence.

One in three is a compilation of three powerful opera extracts intended to bring awareness of gender-based violence. The extracts are from George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Braam du Toit’s Anastasia W and Sibusiso Njeza’s Amagokra. The production is named for the horrifying proportion of abused women and girls in South Africa.

The cast includes Nicole Holm, Nonhlanhla Yende, Mandisinde Mbuyazwe, Van Wyk Venter and female members of the award-winning Cape Town Opera Chorus. Christine Crouse and Magdalene Minnaar will co-direct this production, with musical direction by Marvin Kernelle, costume design by Maritha Visagie and movement direction by Fiona du Plooy.

One in three is proudly sponsored by the Western Cape Government Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport.

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