professional opera company in Cape Town, South Africa
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2024-03-19
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2020-07-26 00:56:00
Counterpunch.org: Porgy and Bess in the Time of BLM
[…] was oppressed. Though the on-stage cast was black (except for the non-singing cops), the conductor (David Robertson) was white like his baton. The stage director (James Robinson) was also white, and, however vibrant, his production was unquestioning—stubbornly disengaged from the world that has overtaken this kind of entertainment since February. I’d last seen a live performance of Porgy and Bess in 2008 in Berlin presented by the touring company Cape Town Opera. That production, so much sparer than the opulent Met presentation, was set not in a singing and dancing waterfront slum in Jim Crow Dixie, but in a South African township: that historical dissonance—and congruence—didn’t blunt the cultural appropriation and violence of the work, but instead brought them into sharp relief. Having recently watched Hamilton on my living room screen, I couldn’t help but imagine what […]
2019-06-10 14:26:00
The glory that is Gershwin
Say what you like about Porgy and Bess - flawed drama, tricky pacing, etc - but you can't get away from the incredible music George Gershwin wrote for it. After years and years in which there's been nothing of this work on a UK stage, this was my second in about four months: on Saturday I went to review Grange Park Opera's new production for The Arts Desk and loved it to bits. And there is a lot for which to thank Cape Town University's Opera School and Cape Town Opera itself.Slightly weird acoustic effects in the round theatre that is GPO's latest home - a story much told elsewhere - but the surrounding gardens are almost impossibly gorgeous. And a special shout-out to the cakes in the croquet lawn marquee, which are some of the best gluten-free jobs I've yet encountered.A less emotionally discomfiting place to see Porgy and Bess […]
2019-06-08 07:53:49
Something for everyone: I chat to Michael Williams', Buxton Festival's CEO, about ideas and plans for the festival
Michael Williams (Photo Anton De Beer) The Buxton Festival has cause for celebration this year, it is 40 years since Anthony Hose and Malcolm Fraser put on the first complete performance of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (in the original keys) at the newly restored Buxton Opera House. Since then the festival has developed enormously, expanding in scope to include a significant musical programme as well as a whole literary side. This year a new team is in charge, Michael Williams, the festival's CEO, took over in 2018, and conductor Adrian Kelly is the new artistic director. I recently met up with Michael to talk about the 2019 festival and learn more of the new team's plans, but also to find out how a South African director and artistic administrator (Michael ran Cape Town Opera for 20 years) has ended up in Buxton. One of the things that Michael enjoys about […]