Five:20 Operas Made in SA

Five:20 Operas Made in SA is a showcase of five South African operas created for the South African College of Music (SACM)’s centenary in 2010 and presented by Cape Town Opera at the Baxter Theatre (21–27 November 2010).

The operas are:

Out of Time (Péter Louis van Dijk)
Saartjie (Hendrik Hofmeyer and Fiona Herbst)
Tronkvoël (Martin Watt and Alwyn Roux)
Words from a Broken String (Peter Klatzow and Michael Williams)
Hani (Bongani Ndodana-Breen and Mfundi Vundla)

For more information on each opera, see entries below.

Out of Time

Composed by Péter Louis van Dijk and directed by Geoffrey Hyland, is a brief journey by ‘Black Taxi’ through prejudice, miscommunication, greed and xenophobia.

Saartjie

Composed by Hendrik Hofmeyer and Fiona Herbst and directed by Geoffrey Hyland, imagines Saartjie Baartman in Paris on New Year’s Eve, 1815.

Original 20-minute work expanded into a full opera, under the title Sara Baartman.

Composed by Martin Watt with librettist Alwyn Roux and directed by Marcus Desando, is inspired by an event that occurred during the imprisonment of South African poet, painter and freedom fighter Breyten Breytenbach. The opera is set against the backdrop of 1970s apartheid South Africa at Pretoria’s notorious C-Max prison. Writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach was imprisoned there for two years for high treason, just metres away from the gallows. It is here, in the shadow of death, that the images conjured from the grotesque sounds of suffering come to haunt him.

Productions

2010: Presented at the Baxter Theatre (November) as part of Five:20 Operas Made in SA

2015: Presented by Gauteng Opera at the Soweto Theatre (August), directed by Tshepo Ratona. This short opera featured Sibusiso Shandu, Coert Grobbelaar, Kagiso Boroko and Elizabeth Lombard, conducted by Graham Scott, choreography by Thoko Sidiya, with set design and lighting by Wilhelm Disbergen. .

Words from a Broken String

Music by Peter Klatzow, libretto by Michael Williams and directed by Geoffrey Hyland, tells the story of Lucy Lloyd, the nineteenth century linguist, who with her brother-in-law Wilhelm Bleek recorded the now extinct language of the San Bushmen.

Productions

2010: Presented at the Baxter Theatre (November) as part of Five:20 Operas Made in SA

2015: Presented by Gauteng Opera at the Soweto Theatre (August), directed by Marcus Desando. Soloists included Natalie Dickson-Bath, Njabulo Mthimkhulu, Phenye Modiane, Kagiso Boroko, Thamsanqa Khaba and Sibusiso Shandu, conducted by Graham Scott, choreography by Thoko Sidiya, with set design and lighting by Wilhelm Disbergen. .

Hani

Commissioned by UCT and Cape Town Opera, composed by Bongani Ndodana-Breen, with a libretto by Mfundi Vundla, tells of the assassination of Chris Hani in 1993. The opera depicts assassinated SACP leader Chris Hani as an embodiment of all those who lost their lives fighting injustice. It is set in the dead of night in the study of the writer, who recalls an encounter with Hani and enters a dreamlike state, interacting with a soothsayer, a praise singer and a chorus of ancestors.

Productions

2010: Presented at the Baxter Theatre (November), directed by Marcus Desando as part of Five:20 Operas Made in SA

2015: Presented by Gauteng Opera at the Soweto Theatre (August), directed by Warona Seane. Soloists included Njabulo Mthimkhulu, Khumbuzile Dlamini and Phenye Modiane, conducted by Graham Scott, choreography by Thoko Sidiya, with set design and lighting by Wilhelm Disbergen.

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.

"Five: 20 - Operas made in South Africa". University of Cape Town. https://humanities.uct.ac.za/cca/projects-archive-and-curatorship-arc-visual-university/five-20-operas-made-south-africa

'Gauteng Opera'. National Arts Council website. https://www.nac.org.za/artisan-post/gauteng-opera/