Spier Wine Farm
Situated outside Stellenbosch on the banks of the Eerste River. Also often referred to simply as Spier.
Purchased by Richard (Dick) Enthoven (1937 – 2 December 2022) in 1993. Enthoven developed the property, and built a hotel and amphitheatre on the farm, effectively creating a centre for the arts. Spier Wine Farm subsequently hosted several festivals on the farm.
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The Amphitheatre
Built in 1993 and it opened in 1996 for its first summer festival. The amphitheatre can seat 3 565 people and the stage is covered and exceedingly well equipped.
The Spier Summer Festival
Also called the Spier Summer Arts Festival. An annual festival sponsored by the Spier Arts Trust. Founded in 1997.
The annual Spier Performance Arts Festival that lasted more than a decade was designed to deliver innovation and excellence in the performing arts; to showcase, promote and develop emerging South African artists; to provide opportunities for collaboration with Pan-African artists; and to build new audiences for performance art forms.
Each year Spier hosted a summer festival of about 5 months, running from end November to mid April the following year. The season consists of an array of musical entertainments, plays, operas, and so on.
Performances included:
1997: Ubu and the Truth Commission (Jane Taylor and William Kentridge
2000: La Traviata
2002: Kentridge's Confessions of Zeno
2003: Hansel & Gretel by Janice Honeyman
Operas produced and presented by Spier included:
1998: Tosca and I Pagliacci
2006: Princess Magogo
2007: macbEth: The Opera
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 Unpublished PhD thesis.
'Citation: Richard Enthoven', https://www.wits.ac.za/media/wits-university/students/graduations/documents/Citation_RichardEnthoven.pdf
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