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 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

1961: Silas Marner

1960: Die Zauberflöte in Afrikaans (at the Union Festival in Bloemfontein)

1963: Don Pasquale in Afrikaans

Other prodoctions performed in Afrikaans include:

• Klutaimnestra
• the operetta Die Noodsein ("The Distress Signal")
• the operetta Lentelief ("Spring Love")

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 Unpublished PhD thesis.

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