Spirit: Slindile Mthembu’s ‘Old Soul Waiting’ will be on at The Melrose Gallery in Joburg. Photo: Hymie Sokupha
Puccini’s Tosca, a lavish, grand-scale production presented by Cape Town Opera with artistic direction by Magdalene Minnaar, opens at the Joburg Theatre tonight.
Heading the stellar cast will be soprano Nobulumko Mngxekeza, as the fiery Floria Tosca, in her first production with Cape Town Opera since being appointed as company soloist last year.
Mngxekeza has enjoyed an outstanding international career and recently returned from Belgium to begin rehearsals.
Playing opposite her will be Cape Town Opera soloists tenor Lukhanyo Moyake as Cavaradossi, Tosca’s love interest, and the award-winning baritone Conroy Scott as the malicious police chief Baron Scarpia.
Cape Town Opera Judith Neilson Young Artists Lwazi Dlamini (Sciarrone), Van Wyk Venter (Spoletta) and Reuben Mbonambi (Angelotti) complete the lineup.
The set and costume designs are by Maritha Visagie and Leopold Senekal; movement direction is by Fiona du Plooy and lighting design by Oliver Hauser.
Maestro Adam Szmidt will conduct the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra and the Sempre Opera Chorus will be directed by Paul Ferreira.
An exciting addition to the 60-strong cast is a 24-member children’s chorus, overseen by Elana Neethling.
Tosca, an opera in three short acts, tells the story of Floria and Mario, ill-fated lovers whose romance plays out amid political turmoil in Italy in 1800.
It is a wrenching, passionate, and at times violent melodrama of love, loss, jealousy
and deception set against the backdrop of a Roman revolution during the Napoleonic Wars.
Cape Town Opera’s production blends Roman grandeur with contemporary elements and strong references to the splendid architecture of the day. The costumes are a conflation of old and new, rich palettes and elegant period pieces.
Experience a spectacle loaded with the drama, intrigue and mystery that audiences have come to expect and appreciate from this powerful artistic genre.
Tosca runs from 21 to 30 July with tickets ranging in price from R180 to R550. Bookings are through Webtickets. Parental guidance is advised.
■ The Melrose Gallery in Johannesburg is partnering with Slindile Mthembu to present Old Soul Waiting, an experimental, multi-disciplinary production that brings together film, theatre, music composed by Thembinkosi Mavimbela, and visual art.
Mthembu’s thought-provoking work delves into the misdiagnosis of ancestral calling as mental illness and invites audiences on a journey of spiritual awakening seen from different perspectives.
The performance will be accompanied by an exhibition featuring collaborations between Mthembu and various visual artists, creating an immersive and engaging experience within the gallery space. Mthembu deconstructs the work, extracting its elements as stylised performances in theatre spaces as well as non-institutional spaces. These sites — which range from cinemas and galleries to restaurants — are what she terms the “third space”.
“What we hope to do is to hybridise the performances in and outside of these spaces … where I want the audience to feel like they’re walking through a maze of the main character’s mind.
“The artworks in the show help to articulate what can’t be verbalised by the protagonist,” Mthembu says.
She invites audiences to enter this world through a woman’s memory. She is referred to in the play as Bongeziwe.
Bongeziwe, played by Mthembu, takes us through her childhood recollections of growing up in an orphanage, where she discovers that she has an old soul — a moya — who lives in her and takes control of her body.
She wakes up years, days or months later, isolated and restrained in a white room, where she continues to see the old soul.
Bongeziwe is examined and treated by a nurse (played by Sami Maseko) who misdiagnoses her spiritual calling as a mental health problem. Throughout the examination, Bongeziwe, falling in and out of sleep, is visited by her Makhulu, an elderly woman, in her dreams who warns her.
One woman. Two personalities. Which one do we believe?
Mthembu was named an Avance Media influential South African in 2020 and last year she was one of the Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans in the arts and entertainment category.
A live performance of Old Soul Waiting will be held on Saturday, 29 July. Tickets are available on Webtickets for R150.