GLYNIS O’HARA speaks to the versatile Sibongile Mngoma, a young soprano who is riding the wave of opera in South Africa
SUPERLATIVES fly for Sibongile Mngoma (25), the soprano whose voice has overwhelmed critics, conductors and the public. “I think she’s great,” says Robert Maxym, freelance American conductor and musician resident in South Africa. “She’s young, talented, enthusiastic, dramatic and has tremendous possibilities. I wish I’d had sopranos like her in the hundreds of performances I conducted in Europe, but I didn’t.”
“I think she’s perhaps the most exciting female voice since her aunt, Sibongile Khumalo, came on the scene,” says Paul Boekkooi, classical music writer for The Star. “There are some women who are really good in certain roles, but this voice is versatile. She can sing anything well, from German lieder to gospel to Gershwin. So often, attempts to cross over from classical to popular are unsuccessful, but she can do it. She’s a very big new talent. If she can do what she’s doing at 25, she’ll be amazing at 40.”
Richard Cock, conductor of the beleaguered National Symphony Orchestra adds: “She’s one of the biggest talents around. Every time I hear her she improves. She’s got real potential. She also has a sense of presence on the stage and is very sussed about business arrangements.”
When she hears praise like this, she laughs and responds: “This is unreal. I’m still waiting for someone to pinch me.”
Sibongile has already performed in Opera Afrika’s Carmen in Durban, in Enoch Prophet of God, Porgy and Bess and sung on the soon-to-be-released recording of uShaka, among other projects.
Her next performance will be on March 16, a recital at Des and Dawn Lindberg’s soire in Houghton. Then, on March 18, she opens in an Andre Lloyd-Webber show at the Civic, with Juanita Kruger and AJ van der Merwe, plus a chorus.
On May 25, Sibongile is doing a Sunday morning recital for Pact, covering everything from spirituals to songs from the musicals to arias from La Bohme and Carmen. She’s so busy though, that when I speak of this concert she admits she had completely forgotten it and takes down the details for her diary.
She works full-time in education, as the cultural officer at Wits Technikon, based on a campus near SABC headquarters, as she feels “you need to help out in whatever way you can. The people in this country need the education badly.”
This, on top of juggling her fast-rising, increasingly demanding singing career. And she’s a single mother of an almost-two toddler. No wonder she sounds exhausted whenever you get through on the phone.
“God I’m tired. My brain’s not functioning,” is virtually all she says on meeting you. A slip of a girl at five foot, she’s dressed in a floor-length navy blue floral printed dress, wearing gold earrings and is the epitome of casual elegance, however over-extended she is.
More and more black classical talent is emerging in South Africa, often from one of two family axes. One revolves around Professor Xhabi Mngoma’s family – Sibongile Mngoma’s grandfather and Sibongile Khumalo’s father – former head of the music department of the University of Zululand. The other revolves around violinist Michael Masote, who runs a school in Soweto and who trained relatives and friends in the Soweto String Quartet and countless others.
“The two groups idea is true to a certain extent,” says Sibongile, “although we have overlapped as well, for example in the Soweto Symphony Orchestra … But I think those two hubs of activity have just been exposed more, there have been other efforts …
“Classical music is absolutely spreading in the townships. It’s a pity that just at this point, the government is critical of its funding. There’s no justification for that.”
It was ironic, she said, that threats to the National Symphony Orchestra and the arts councils were coming just as so many people who were not Eurocentric were getting interested in classical music.
“Also, the NSO used to use the Linder and the City Hall. Now they’re involved in community projects like the massed choir festival, and they play in Soweto regularly. To take it away now makes no sense.
“I’d argue for solid funding of classical music, it seems crazy to lose the opera department at Pact. Jo’burg doesn’t even have opera or ballet. Why not, when there’s so much interest? The closing down of opera schools, like in Pretoria, is not on. At Wits there’s pressure too and it’s unnecessary …”
Mngoma trained at the University of Cape Town’s opera school with Sarita Stern, who’s still her teacher – “we fly up and down for training”.
Like her aunt, she also sings jazz, even though she was initially told at the opera school that she had to choose between the two forms.
“But fate took over and I had to go and
sing at the Dock Road venue to fill in for someone, so I did both. It was with the consent of teachers: you had to get permission to do anything commercial.”
As a winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist’s award, she gets to perform on the Main Festival in July this year. “We’re looking at a concert of across-the-board material. We’ll be using a string quartet with piano and jazz- band-type percussion.”
Describing her voice as heavy lyric, she says her favourite roles now are Micaela in Carmen and Mimi in La Bohme. “But I’d like to do everything, although I can’t yet because I’m too young. I’m in an odd position – I’m too old for teenage parts and too young for some of the roles I want!
“I can’t do Madame Butterfly yet. It’s a very heavy role, requiring a mature sound and a mature body as well. I’m not yet at a level where I can attack the heavy stuff.
“I couldn’t do Norma either. Possibly in another five years.”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a South African opera star on the international stage, rivalling great memories like Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland, and simultaneously bringing tears to the eyes of onse Mimi and arts supporter Deputy President Thabo Mbeki? Of course it would.
But let’s not frighten Sibongile with too much expectation. Let’s just revel in what we have now, which is fabulous.