2012 South African Theatre Retrospective: Opera and Musical Theatre

With 2012 drawing to a rapid close, there is no better time for an overview of the theatre productions seen on stage in South Africa over the past year. The second part of this four part series focuses on opera and musical theatre, the first part having had a look at the plays, with the next two articles zooming in on comedy and cabaret; and dance and physical theatre. All feature comments from members of South Africa's theatre community about their respective theatrical highlights of 2012.

First, the operas....

PORGY AND BESS, the American folk opera by George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward, returned to South Africa following a series of international engagements. Set in Catfish Row, a slum in Charleston, South Caroline, the piece deals with the life of Porgy, a disabled African-American beggar who attempts to rescue Bess from her abusive lover, Crown, and her addiction to "happy dust", fostered by a local drug dealer, Sportin' Life. With the setting transposed to Soweto in the 1970s in Christine Crouse's production, the piece starred Xolela Sixaba and Nonhlanhla Yende as Porgy and Bess. The production received many rave reviews, with much praise reserved for Michael Mitchell's set design and the fervent energy with which the company delivered the material.

Conductor Jeremy Silver was behind the baton for Cape Town Opera's presentation of the Puccini classic, LA BOHEME. Given Nkosi sang the role of Rodolfo opposite Nozuko Teto as Mimì, who prepared for the roles under the tutelage of Mirella Freni and Renata Scotto in Italy. An irresistibly romantic piece, the opera is a valentine to life in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1840s, following the lives of four bohemian artists, most notably that of the poet, Rodolfo, and the terminally ill seamstress, Mimì.

My opera pick for the year was the Leonard Bernstein one-act, TROUBLE IN TAHITI, which had a short season at The Fugard Theatre in August starring Thato Machona and Violina Anguelov. Bernstein called upon his autobiographical experiences when writing TROUBLE IN TAHITI, which exposes the reality behind façade of suburban life by telling the story of an unhappily married couple. The link between Bernstein's life and his works was deftly reinforced by a piece entitled THE MUSICAL MARRIAGES OF Leonard Bernstein, which was researched and compiled by the opera's director, Matthew Wild.

Some of the other works that appeared on stages around the country this year included FIDELIO, which had the novelty of being staged inside the Castle of Good Hope; Cape Town Opera's usual collaborations with the University of Cape Town Opera school, COSÌ FAN TUTTE and THE TALES OF HOFFMAN; and BRAVO OPERA AFRICA, half of which featured a new one-act Zulu opera, ZIYANKOMO AND THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT, which was composed by Phelelani Mnomiya, with a libretto by Themba Msimang.

Musical theatre also made its voice heard in South Africa this year. In Cape Town, the year kicked off with a revival of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, which subsequently settled into a comfortable run in Johannesburg. This reproduction of Harold Prince's iconic staging of the smash hit by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe starred Jonathan Roxmouth in the titular role, with Robin Botha and Magdalene Minnaar alternating as Christine, the object of the Phantom's obsession. Freelance actor and singer, Anton Luitingh, who is currently Resident Director on the Asian and South African tours of JERSEY BOYS, picked the show as one of his highlights of the year, saying that 'Pieter Toerien's production of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA provided the most spectacle and bang for your buck on SA stages in 2012.'

Related Links

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Born and bred in South Africa, David has loved theatre since the day he set foot on stage in his preschool nativity play. He graduated with a Master of Arts (Theatre and Performance) degree from the University of Cape Town in 2005, having previously graduated from the same university with a First Class Honours in Drama in 2002. An ardent essayist, David won the Keswick Prize for Lucidity for his paper "Homosexual Representation in the Broadway Musical: the development of homosexual identities and relationships from PATIENCE to RENT". Currently, he teaches Dramatic Arts at a high school in Cape Town and also freelances as a theatremaker and performer.