University of Cape Town Opera School
The Opera Department attached to the University of Cape Town.
Now known as Opera UCT, under the directorship of Jeremy Silver.
Origins
Established in 1954 at the South African College of Music (SACM) at the University of Cape Town to ensure that singers could receive formal vocal and academic training to prepare them for a professional career in opera.
Staff
The Italian Gregorio Fiasconaro was the first director (1952-1980). Angelo Gobbato was also director until his retirement, when the first non-Italian, the American conductor Kamal Khan, took over. Khan left the Opera School in 2016.
Purpose
It provides training in all aspects of opera performance, and although it stages performances for the public, the SACM and its opera activities are primarily focused on the training of opera students.
The University of Cape Town Opera Company was associated to the Opera School.
Productions
Early productions of opera were staged by University of Cape Town Opera Company. For productions presented at the Baxter Theatre in the 1970s, the billing UCT Opera School was used. These productions included:
1977: Dialogue of the Carmelites
1978: Albert Herring
1979: La Boheme
1980: Werther
1982: He Who Says Yes, Mahagonny Songspiel and Down In The Valley.
1983: The Beggar's Opera (with UCT Drama Department)
1985: Xerxes
For earlier productions, see University of Cape Town Opera Company.
Sources
Wayne Muller. 2018. A reception history of opera in Cape Town: Tracing the development of a distinctly South African operatic aesthetic (1985–2015). Unpublished PhD thesis.
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