Andrew Botha makes his directorial debut in Pro Musica’s production of Rigoletto. It won’t be ordinary, writes Paul Boekkooi
After being involved in more than 60 opera productions in South Africa and internationally, Andrew Botha is confident of breaking with tradition in Verdi’s Rigoletto.
“I know there’s a strong buzz around the fact that ‘here Botha comes with his debut as an opera director. Why? It’s outrageous and controversial, etcetera.’ The argument would be that if I started off with another opera, would it be like this?
“No it wouldn’t. It would not be appropriate. Would I do a La Traviata in this convention, set in a drug club? Definitely not. One thing I pride myself in being an artist, apart from being a designer, is the right to have a consistent eclectic style. Every piece will have and require its own set of rules. We’ll approach this production as appropriately as possible.
“Rigoletto I believe lends itself so well to the subject matter of contemporary society, talking about sex, abuse and anything one can relate to. I didn’t spend much time conceptualising how we should do it. It jumped quite quickly. Wow! This is a fresh stance.”
Botha is a staunch believer that in the 21st century you have to cut out completely period productions in the European tradition. Europeans don’t do them any more, either. They’re looking at fresh ways, new audiences. The intendants themselves are young. They’re addressing young audiences’ needs, striking down opera to its bare essentials. If it fails to entertain on that basic, primary level, it has failed.
A single sentence sums up Botha’s vision: “It must be clean, the story must be clear, bold, operatic, musically appropriate and sustain the interest.”
In another era one should contextualise the whole process. “As subtle as one would like to be and as delicate the Italian may be, there is no question, for example, about the Duke’s [Sidwell Hartman] intentions. He’s out to have sex with as many women as possible. How poetically it is expressed is neither here nor there.
“Another matter is Sparafucile, the assassin [Bongani Vilakazi] and one of opera’s most quintessential suspicious characters. We give him some meat. What about a serial killer, what happens in his life after the drama or is it just that relationship with Maddalena [Sibongile Khumalo]? We’ve played a lot with the performers in terms of exploring what they think and how they relate to it now. All the stuff that is in the media and movies about serial killers. Is this assassin a little bit more than a hired hand who comes, stabs and runs away? Is there another dynamic to his personality?
“It’s all these colourations that the performers have brought to me and suggestions of ideas that have mutated themselves into their own things, which I think is really exciting.”
And what about the tension between Rigoletto (Hans van Heerden) and his daughter, Gilda (Anina Wasserman)?
“Aaah. You think you know an opera, you can read the text again and see the consistency of the plot and eventually you think there are central issues you’ve got to address. There are difficult ones, like the father/daughter relationship. He’s a big, violent man, and she doesn’t really know what he does. She is an innocent girl, who hasn’t seen the world, but seems prepared to go for the Duke. Then you realise the plot is not nearly as black-and-white as you thought. It’s a lot more subtle. Even with all that brass and triple fortes, its still open to a lot of interpretation”.
Andrew Botha celebrates 21 years in the industry this year. He has directed industrial theatre and musicals before, but it was as a designer that he worked with what feels like hundreds of directors. His favourite directors include Geoffrey Sutherland and Francois Swart.
“In Elektra Swart communicated what he wanted from the singer-actors very simply. Yes, he was screaming and going way over the top, but he achieved simple detailing in the simplest stage terms. Also, working with Michael Rennison in Lohengrin was a life highlight you couldn’t take away from anyone. We went to Bayreuth to research it there and Lindy Grindlay and I were given tremendous freedom with costume design. Michael’s openness even on a metaphysical level was very generous.”
Botha, who has known Weiss Doubell, Rigoletto’s conductor, for years, only started working formally with him in 1997 when George Kok received a commission to do The Magic Flute for the Greek National Opera in Athens. Botha designed the production and Doubell conducted, and during the run they had ample time to discuss opera in South Africa. Since then they’ve started a professional relationship that seems to go from strength to strength.