May Abrahamse

May Abrahamse (1930-2025) is an opera singer.

Biography

Originally from District Six, May Abrahamse attended Zonnebloem Girls Primary School and Zonnebloem Secondary School until Grade 9, when she left to work as a domestic worker in the same house where her mother worked as a cook. A few months later, she bumped into a friend who encouraged her to do more with her life, and she applied at the Cape Times newspaper, in the printing section, where she worked for years.

She died in Belgravia in 2025.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

Her passion for music started at a young age, and at the age of 14 years old she joined the EOAN Group. When she was a member of the EOAN Group's Junior Choir in her early teens, Joseph Manca identified her and two other singers as worthy candidates for inclusion in the Adult Choir. Before long she was given solo parts in choral works performed by the group under Manca's baton. It seemed a natural progression for someone of Abrahamse's talent to go from choral singing to musical comedy to opera, and not surprisingly she found herself in the lead of all the EOAN Group productions from the mid-1950s, starting with A Slave in Araby (1949).

Other productions include:

Violetta in La Traviata (1956, EOAN Group), Rose-Marie (1958, EOAN Group), We'll Gather Lilacs (1978), Annina in La Traviata (2004, Cape Town Opera).

She was vocal coach for the EOAN Group and taught singing at the Joseph Stone in Athlone for many years, and loved putting on concerts where she showcased her adult students.

Sources

'Getting on with the show'. IOL. 22 April 2004.

Nabeelah Mohedeen. 'SA soprano May Abrahamse dies at 94'. The Athlone News. 12 May 2025.

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