World champion soprano Pretty Yende never knew opera existed until a soaring score of an airline commercial came within the television in her own South African black township home A decade ago.
The flash of 19th-century French composer Leo Delibes' classic "Flower Duet" from his opera "Lakme" so moved the teenager maturing without librettas and arias that she asked a higher school teacher the next day what are the music was.
"He said it's called opera," recalled Yende, now a resident at Milan's renowned La Scala ten years after telling her teacher: "I need to do that."
From Thandukukhanya in eastern South Africa to northern Italy, the 26-year-old was recently handed joint top honour inside the Operalia world opera competition founded by Spanish maestro Placido Domingo.
"All I wanted to complete ended up being sing. All I want to to perform ended up being discover how to sing," Yende told AFP. "Even now, all I want to do is always to sing well."
South African black opera voices have burst onto the international stage, mirroring the nation's shift to democracy, decades after white Afrikaner soprano Mimi Coertse debuted in the Vienna State Opera in 1956.
Experts say their rise is no sudden outpouring of new talent but rather that all-race freedom in 1994 levelled the game to allow people that have remarkable gifts who have been stifled under apartheid to enter the sport.
"At as soon as healthy singers are black," said Virginia Davids, head of vocal studies with the South African College of Music based in the University of Cape Town.
South Africans are available from Tel Aviv to London, with soprano Pumeza Matshikiza performing at Monaco's royal wedding- the place that the principality's Prince Albert II married South African Charlene Wittstock in July - and Sweden-based Dimande Nkosazana taking first prize in a very competition in Italy.
"Formerly. individuals were not really allowed on the stage and that's why it looks like you will find there's huge upsurge. But what it's is suddenly things opened and people started realising they are able to make careers," said Davids.
"These singers will always be there nevertheless they will always be ignored. It's actually a pity want . large amount of wonderful talent has gone missing in the act because of the situation we been in this country," she added.
- 'We're a singing nation' -
But local singers are forced to seek international stages, since Cape Town Opera will be the only fulltime troupe in the united kingdom and in all likelihood the whole African continent with regular productions locally and tours abroad.
"It's sad...simply because there aren't enough opera companies in South Africa to sustain the employment. Really to create a living being an opera singer you need to check out Europe in order to the States," said the opera's financial manager Elise Brunelle.
South Africa's past has inspired local composers who've shaped operas around real-life divas like former president Nelson Mandela's ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, or revamped classics like Bizet's "Carmen" in a gritty shanty town setting.
"There's much history and there are many people here whose lives and whose stories are perfectly suitable for the operatic form," said Brunelle, adding that foreign audiences also respond well towards the local stories.
"These are stories and people that could be understood in a worldwide context."
The students often originate from impoverished backgrounds and, unlike their European counterparts, failed to grow up with pianos and violins.
"The voice will be the only instrument they've - sizzling hot of earning music," said Davids who was considered one of South Africa's first non-white opera singers.
She laments deficiency of local stages as well as the talent drain as gifted South Africans head overseas, but hails her opera students here.
"They are extremely focused and they know this is what I want to do. These are happy to make the time," Davids said.
The aptitude for an art thought to be elitist "Old Europe" in South Africa - where it's not at all unknown on an informal car guard to get rid of into an aria - also doesn't surprise soprano Yende. She says she actually is most at peace when singing and views the stage as home.
"We really are a singing nation. We have been born having a beat. We cry, we sing. We laugh, we sing. We're sad, we sing. We lose, we sing. We win, we sing," Yende said.
"So song has been section of us from your long while."
0 comments:
Post a Comment