University of Cape Town Opera Company
The University of Cape Town Opera Company was the affiliated performance company of the University of Cape Town Opera School.
Purpose and History
Established in 1951.
Productions
The Opera School was prolific in staging opera performances, and within its first decadee, the students had performed in forty different operas in 650 performances in the Little Theatre, with Erik Chisholm as conductor of the University Orchestra. This company also travelled the countryside to towns like Swellendam, Riversdale, King William’s Town, Grahamstown, Cradock, Graaff-Reinet, Paarl, Stellenbosch, Kimberley, Bloemfontein, Pretoria, and and Namibia and the former Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
Works performed included Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte and Don Giovanni, Puccini’s Tosca and Turandot, Verdi’s Falstaff, and Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia. Among the other Italian works staged were Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Bellini’s La sonnambula, Puccini’s La bohème, and in the early years Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and Iphegenia in Tauris. Other works included Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel. A number of English-language operas were performed, especially the works of Menotti, including The Telephone, The Medium and The Consul.
The UCT Opera Company also performed operas in Afrikaans, and Afrikaans operas were composed for this company.
Productions included:
1952: Dark Sonnet, Tafelberg se Kleed ("Table Mountain’s Cloth"), performed in Afrikaans; on tour (April): Suor Angelica, La serva padrona, The Telephone and The Medium.
1953: The Inland Woman; tour to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) between 4 and 21 February 1953: Gianni Schicchi, La serva padrona, Il segreto di Susanna, The Telephone, The Medium.
1956/1957: Tour to London and Glasgow with Bartok's opera Bluebeard, with Desiree Talbot as Judith and Gregorio Fiasconaro as Duke Bluebeard at Chisholm's Festival of South African Music and Musicians performed by College of Music staff and students.
1960: Die Zauberflöte in Afrikaans (at the Union Festival in Bloemfontein)
1961: Silas Marner (world premiere), The Pardoner’s Tale (world premiere).
1962: The Portuguese Inn, La serva padrona
1963: Don Pasquale in Afrikaans; Tosca
1964: Otello
1969: La Bohème (in association with CAPAB Opera)
1973: The Contract
1975: Die Noodsein
Other productions performed in Afrikaans include:
- the operetta Lentelief ("Spring Love")
Productions in the late 1970s were billed as those of the UCT Opera School.
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.
Sjoerd Alkema. 2012. "Conductors of the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra, 1914-1965: a historical perspective". University of Cape Town. Unpublished PhD thesis.
Hilde Roos. 2010. 'Opera Production in the Western Cape: Strategies in Search of Indigenisation'. Unpublished PhD thesis. Stellenbosch University.
Barrow, Brian & Williams-Short, Yvonne (eds.). 1988. Theatre Alive! The Baxter Story 1977-1987).
Alexandra Xenia Sabina Mossolow. 2003. The career of South African soprano Nellie du Toit, born 1929. Unpublished Masters thesis. University of Stellenbosch.
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