Why top SA talent goes for a song

SA has no shortage of opera talent. Think Mimi Coertse, Michelle Breedt, Pumeza Matshikiza, Elza van den Heever, Musa Nkuna and the late Deon van der Walt. Then there’s Pretty Yende, Golda Schultz, Sunnyboy Vincent Dladla ... the list goes on.

SA is also home to some world-class training facilities and resources. The University of Cape Town (UCT), for example, has a dedicated opera facility at the SA College of Music, which operates from the 638-seat Baxter Theatre. It offers a broad scope for music education, including training for vocals and instruments, and specific operatic training in conjunction with Cape Town Opera. Among its alumni are classical composer Robert Fokkens and opera stars Matshikiza, Yende, Schultz and Dladla.

The challenge for singers, however, is a lack of opportunity once they’ve graduated.

“In SA, a country which is geographically five times larger than Germany, we have only one thriving opera company — Cape Town Opera,” says Cape Town-born soprano Schultz. “The company doesn’t have enough jobs available to keep every singer in the country employed.”

Germany, in contrast, has more than 80 fully operational regional opera houses, she says — and that drives a demand for young talent. It means an enriched operatic ecosystem, which benefits artists.

Schultz had her first violin lesson at the age of five, but the opera bug bit only much later, when she enrolled for an elective in music while reading for a degree in journalism at Rhodes University. That took her to a graduate degree in music at UCT, followed by two years with Cape Town Opera, before she landed a spot at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York.

Today, she’s based just outside Munich, Germany, and performs around the world.

Dladla is another homegrown talent who’s working abroad.

His high school teachers in Mpumalanga were the first to recognise the tenor’s operatic potential. And after being awarded an opportunity to study the subject at UCT, he surrounded himself with opera experts and private supporters of the genre, who helped him build a career. Among them, he credits SA businessman Raymond Ackerman and his wife Wendy as pillars of support.

One spin-off of the talent exodus is that SA “has become more visible to the world at large”, says Schultz. “More and more young singers are taking their rightful place among the up-and-coming talents to watch. They are winning at competition level consistently and with grace.”

Still, it’s tough trying to make it as a young opera singer. The burden of having no consistent income and depending on performance bookings is difficult in a field struggling with sustainability.

Consider, says Schultz, that as an opera singer, you have to pay personally for “flights, visas, hotels, train tickets, coaching and lessons. Yet, at the end of all this financial [outlay], nothing is guaranteed.”

Each of the performers I spoke to has ideas about how to make the local industry more sustainable.

Schultz, for example, argues that the infrastructure is already available to revive the prominence of opera. “We have Artscape in Cape Town, the Sand du Plessis [theatre] in Bloemfontein and the State Theatre in Tshwane,” she says. “But to be fully functional, theatres need orchestras, stage porters, administrative departments, costume departments, makeup artists, cafeteria services, technical support staff, transportation ... the list goes on.”

Yende, for her part, believes the local opera houses need to get more involved in mobilising the passion and culture of opera in society — and, perhaps more importantly, help discover and develop new talent. For her, and for Schultz, the issue is awareness: South Africans need to be made aware of the art form, as well as the talent that is available in the country.

Schultz believes this can be achieved by creating an audience for opera through outreach programmes, which target neglected audiences and invite them into spaces they previously had little access to.

In Dladla’s view, consistent support from public, private and nonprofit organisations can help create multiple platforms for operatic expression.

First, however, the industry needs to absorb the blows of the Covid-19 pandemic. As the world went into lockdown, opera singers experienced the same shock as all those whose livelihoods are interwoven with community.

“It has been an absolutely difficult year,” says Yende. “As freelancers, we earn per contract, and all the performance cancellations without pay have resulted in devastating consequences.”

While Dladla bemoans the hardships facing freelancers, he’s been impressed by how German opera houses have taken care of their performers. “The culture is financially backed by governments in most of the European countries,” he says.

“Singers who are permanently employed by the opera houses are [economically] safe.”

Like other industries, opera has had to innovate to ensure the sustainability of the sector, finding alternative ways of connecting opera lovers with their favourite shows.

Schultz sees a ray of hope in organisers’ adoption of technological solutions. Online streaming of live performances, for example, has allowed viewers across the world to have access to opera performances.

But it’s not quite the same.

“This live art form – which thrives on people communing together in the dark to hear stories — has lost some of that magic,” she says.

“We miss connecting with our audience – where you hear them hold their breath as you attack a devastatingly scary phrase. Or when you hold a note so long it seems to defy logic. The sheer force of the applause blasts your brain into the present moment, and makes you forget every mistake you ever made.“

This live art form – which thrives on people communing together in the dark to hear stories — has lost some of that magic.

“SA has produced a larger number of performers, but not enough platforms,” Dladla says. “Opera [in SA] survives only because of private donors and sponsors.”

Part of the problem, Dladla explains, is that opera is treated here as a hobby rather than a profession. It’s a perception that needs to change, he says, contrasting SA with Europe, where people “take [operatic] culture seriously”.

He says: “All opera houses there are funded by the governments of the various countries. Singers are offered employment and related financial security. The continent has countless platforms for opera artists and that is the reason for the exodus of opera talent [from] SA.”

Another of those who has left the country is Yende. Her journey in opera started in 2001, when she watched a television advert that featured Léo Delibes’s Flower Duet. Her talent has since taken her from the small Mpumalanga town of Piet Retief to stages the world over.

Now based in Italy, Yende remains optimistic about the future of SA opera — provided particular challenges can be overcome.

“Opera is still perceived as a genre that belongs only to the ‘elite’, and that’s a pity, because it is humanity’s gift, meant to be embraced by each and everyone,” she says. “The genre is struggling to attract coverage in mainstream media when measured against other types of popular music in SA. It is not afforded the possibility of access and awareness that it deserves.”

Of course, it’s not just a lack of opportunity that draws SA’s stars abroad. Europe also has a particular cachet when it comes to opera — it is, as Schultz notes, the “mecca of classical music”.

She explains that the allure is similar to the energy that attracted legendary composers such as Mozart and Beethoven to popular venues in times past. Modern artists want to perform on the same stages that once hosted the greats of history and where today the stars of the contemporary age perform.

“For anyone, in any career, it is essential to test your mettle against the best in your field,” she says. “It is the reason tech mavericks try to position themselves on the west coast of the US. You want to be where you have the greatest chance of being seen by those in the industry who make artistic decisions.”