One committed to emulating Europe; the other finding talent at home. COENRAAD VISSER reports on two opera companies fighting to survive
TWO professional opera companies are playing in Gauteng — only one likely to survive in the long term, according to current thinking in the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. The teasing question at the back of one’s mind at the opening nights of the operas last weekend was: which one?
Capab Opera is at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre with the provocative production La Tragedie de Carmen, Marius Constant, Jean-Claude Carriere and Peter Brook’s adaptation of Bizet’s opera of lust, love and death in Seville. The adaptation is masterly. It reduces the overlong original to its barest essentials, and so tightens the narrative line. The orchestra, too, is reduced to a chamber ensemble of single strings, woodwinds and brass, with piano; again the result is tauter and more striking.
Director Marthinus Basson works wonders with his material, both text and singers. An acclaimed dramatic director, he has an unerring eye for subtle detail and a sure hand for directing his young cast, from which he draws performances of dramatic intensity and sensibility rarely seen on South African opera stages.
He is fortunate, though, to have the young Katherine Henderson in the title role. Her every movement suggests the sensuality of this doomed woman, and vocally she is nothing short of superb, dark and powerful in her lower register, secure and richly autumnal in her middle and upper registers. This performance confirms Henderson’s emergence as the most exciting vocal actress since fellow Capetonian Marissa Vitale caught the imagination a few years ago.
Against her, Jannie Moolman (Don Jose) sings pleasantly and heroically enough. But his characterisation is too introspective, almost insipid, to make us believe in his rogue soldier.
The two crucial supporting roles are also cast from strength. Angela Gilbert (Micaela) is perfectly sweet of voice and manner, the flawless reminder of Don Jose’s long-lost innocent past. Abel Motsoadi (Escamillo) has a baritone voice of ravishing beauty and power; unfortunately, in this production he was consistently too loud.
While the orchestral players shone individually, conductor Philip Pointner gave a rather perfunctory reading of the score. In a production that was such strong testimony to local talent, why was it necessary to import a conducting student from Vienna to lead the small ensemble?
In sharp contrast to Capab’s shining display of local talent in an intriguing production, Pact Opera gave us a solid production of a safe, enduring favourite, with imported singers in the lead roles.
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly perhaps best suits Neels Hansen’s directorial style, which consists largely of placing singers on stage in pretty tableaux, perhaps a leftover from his days as a designer of, above all, pretty and lavish costumes and sets. Why Hansen, artistic director of Pact Opera before his retirement, gets to monopolise the company’s productions to the exclusion of younger, more inspired, talent, is another of this arts council’s seemingly countless secrets.
However, Giovanna de Liso and Carlo Franci ensure the stunning success of the present production.
De Liso, who made her debut at La Scala in the title role, is a Butterfly beyond one’s wildest dreams. With a voice cleanly focused and surely pitched, and a stage presence to rival memories of the great operatic actresses of the past, she can have few peers today in this role. Her sense of character development, from young girl to the ill-fated wife taking her own life, is unerring.
Even more astounding is the way in which this development is reflected in her colouring of her voice. This is a performance to treasure for life.
At the same time, one has to question Pact’s decision not to give Mauri Mostert at least one or two performances as Butterfly. After all, she won a Vita award for her performance in Roodepoort and she is a permanent member of the Pact company.
Carlo Franci conducts a dramatic account of the score, sometimes more than slightly faster than one is used to. While he never allows the proceedings to flag, he still highlights detail to make one listen afresh to a score that has become almost too familiar.
Claudio di Segni (Pinkerton) is adequate but does not justify his contract to the exclusion of local singers. Hanre Lass (Suzuki), Anton Stoltz (Goro) and Hans van Heerden (Sharpless) acquit themselves well.
To return to the teasing question, the choice of which company should survive seems to lie between a company committed to productions that would feel at home on European stages, complete with singers making a career there, and a company with a proven track record for the uncommon and the tantalising, and for its longstanding commitment to local artists, including black singers.
Where, dare one whisper, are Pact’s Virginia Davids, Sidwell Hartman or Abel Motsoadi, to name the obvious few? When will Gauteng see a South African opera getting the full treatment given to Roelof Temmingh’s Enoch, Prophet of God in Cape Town? The answers to these questions should, in the end, determine the home of a single national company.
La Tragedie de Carmen is at the Johannesburg Civic until March 9; Madama Butterfly runs at the State Theatre, Pretoria, until March 16