{"id":2941,"date":"2024-02-20T23:48:14","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T04:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=2941"},"modified":"2024-02-20T23:48:17","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T04:48:17","slug":"opera-in-south-africa-you-get-what-you-deserve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2024\/02\/opera-in-south-africa-you-get-what-you-deserve.html","title":{"rendered":"Opera in South Africa: &#8220;You Get What You Deserve&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Goitsemang Lehobye - My man&#039;s gone now- Porgy and Bess\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YmQJxMUzpSw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the most remarkable developments in classical music today is the profusion of gifted Black South African opera singers graduating from the University of Cape Town and winding up on major stages in Europe and the United States. Why and how is that happening? As I was recently in South Africa, I enjoyed an opportunity to try and find out. The outcome is the most recent of my \u201cMore than Music\u201d documentaries on National Public Radio. You can hear it&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wamu.org\/story\/24\/02\/19\/more-than-music-south-africa-and-a-love-of-arias\/\">here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa is a \u201csinging country.\u201d In segregated Black townships, under apartheid, singing was inherent to church and school. And it became commonplace for Black high schoolers to sing selections from oratorios. With the end of apartheid in 1991, the cork was out of the bottle. By 2000, more than 90 per cent of the opera students in Cape Town were Black.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As remarkable: casting in opera became color-blind virtually overnight. In the US, opera companies and audiences resisted seeing Black tenors sing opposite white sopranos. Today, the acrimony continues over who should sing what, and whether the entire enterprise is \u201ccolonialist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is the soprano Goitsemang Lehobye, whom you can hear singing Verdi and Gershwin on my \u201cMore than Music\u201d show: \u201cI want to sing [Puccini\u2019s] Madame Butterfly one day. But am I not going to do it because I\u2019m not Japanese, I\u2019m not Asian? I come from a place where we don\u2019t think like that. When you get onstage, you pretend to be what you\u2019re supposed to be. And life goes on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And here is the tenor Sakhumzi Martins, whom I (surreptitiously) recorded \u2013 in Fish Hook, South Africa &#8212; in a rapturous rendition of \u201cMaria,\u201d from&nbsp;<em>West Side Story<\/em>: \u201cIt\u2019s a shame what Black Americans are facing. In South Africa, for you to get cast, you have to be&nbsp;&nbsp;hard worker. There\u2019s no short way. The opportunities are quite slim, so you have to work and sweat. We have learned not to take things personally. It\u2019s just business, you have to want it more than the next person. So it\u2019s got nothing to do with color [who gets chosen]. We all know one another. In South Africa, you get what you deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And here is John McWhorter, quoted on my radio show: \u201dTo a Black American, some Africans cam seem almost oddly secure and joyous \u2013 they don\u2019t seem to have a basic sense of whiteness as an insult to them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To hear a related \u201cMore than Music\u201d program on George Shirley and racial integration at the Metropolitan Opera, click&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2023\/01\/george-shirley-a-life-in-music-on-npr.html\">here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>LISTENING GUIDE:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Part 1 (00:00): Sakhumzi Martins sings Bernstein; Jeremy Silver (who runs the University of Cape Town opera program) on what&#8217;s happening and why<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Part 2 (12:00): Goitsemang Lehobye sings Verdi and Gershwin; Angelo Gobbato on the history of opera in South Africa; Mzilikazi Khumalo and the South African choral tradition (with commentary by Khumalo and music historian Thomas Pooley)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Part 3 (29:58): Khumalo&#8217;s epic <em>Ushaka<\/em> (commentary by orchestrator\/conductor Robert Maxym); summing up: &#8220;In South Africa, you get what you deserve.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most remarkable developments in classical music today is the profusion of gifted Black South African opera singers graduating from the University of Cape Town and winding up on major stages in Europe and the United States. Why and how is that happening? As I was recently in South Africa, I enjoyed an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-Lr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2941"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2947,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2941\/revisions\/2947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}