Cape theatre picks: March 4 2011

Classical theatre is on the cards in Cape Town.

• Cape Town’s only professional repertory acting company, The Mechanicals, continue their summer season of classic works, appropriately with William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It promises to be a potentially magical experience, since the play is performed in the tiny (73-seater) Intimate Theatre. This popular, evergreen comedy is directed by actor and designer Guy De Lancey. The cast includes Mechanicals’ core members seen in their other recent successes, Tinarie van wyk Loots (The Importance of Being Earnest, Cowboy Mouth), Kate Liquorish (Cosi, Mephisto) and Andrew Laubscher (Cosi, Highway Crossing).

  Until April 2 at the Intimate Theatre, 37 Orange Street, Gardens. Book at Tel: 021 480 7129. Website: www.themechanicals.co.za

• Cape Town Opera kicks off their ambitious 2011 season (with eight productions, when last year saw five) with Michael Williams’s revised staging of his grand version of Bizet’s classic opera, Carmen. Violina Anguelov, a new permanent addition to the company, takes on the role of the elusive gypsy femme fatale. Cape Town audiences last heard her as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. She will share the role with the Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili, who has recently performed at such renowned houses as La Scala and the Met. Argentinean tenor Marcelo Puente makes his Cape Town debut as Don José. Zanne Stapelberg is in the role of Micaëla.

  On March 9, 12, 15, 17 and 19 at the Opera House, Artscape Theatre Centre, Foreshore. Book at Computicket. Tel: 021 421 7695. Website: www.artscape.co.za
  

  Well-known musician and composer Neo Muyanga make shis writing debut with Memory of how it feels. The work is inspired by the traditional Zulu practice of exchanging beads encoded with secret messages between lovers. Using elements of myth and folklore from Uganda, Egypt and Samaria, as well as classical and traditional music. Three tonal short stories, told through narration, dance and chamber music, are reflections of both romantic and platonic new love. The chamber orchestra is tuned to assimilate the modes, harmonies and patterns of a Zulu love letter and deliberately defines a new vocabulary for how we can look and play classical music in South Africa today. It is directed by Ina Wichterich.

  Until March 19 at the Golden Arrow Studio, Baxter Theatre, Main Road, Rosebank. Book at Computicket. Tel: 021 685 7880. Website: