South African Arias

Lindsay Johns explores the flourishing of operatic talent in post-Apartheid South Africa.

The operatic voices emerging from South Africa are extraordinary. In recent years, Pretty Yende sang at King Charles’s coronation, and Cape Town hosted the world’s biggest opera competition ‘Operalia’. In the two most recent editions of Cardiff Singer of the World, Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha and Siphokazi Molteno have soared above other competitors.

A form of classical music, usually considered elite, has become one of the country’s most successful exports.

In Cape Town, Lindsay visits the Foundation Studio, Cape Town Opera’s training programme for the next generation of South African soloists. And he travels with the company’s Vocal Ensemble to performances in local neighbourhoods, including Langa, the city’s oldest township.

Set against these contemporary initiatives is a longer story of transformation – of opera’s survival through the turbulent renegotiation of the artistic landscape. Under Apartheid, opera was made for white people, by white people, and subsidised by the government. Post-democracy, opera had to compete on an equal footing with indigenous and popular culture for state funding and it was forced to make itself relevant to the diversity of the ‘Rainbow Nation’.

Lindsay Johns meets singers, teachers, critics and locals to tell the story of a nation’s relationship with a colonial artform they have made their own.