‘Rigoletto’ with cellphones
AWARD-winning director Marthinus Basson launches the Cape Town Opera 2017 season with a contemporary staging of Verdi’s Rigoletto that places themes of power, money, corruption, abuse, misogyny and prejudice in an African context.
Basson says: “I think human nature is pretty set and sophistication only a very thin veneer. When I was a schoolboy I started reading the Roman classics and satires. From these I learnt that things had not really changed much over 2 000 years, only our technology.”
Technology plays an integral part in Rigoletto, with characters on stage talking on cellphones, taking selfies and filming videos. Eyes are everywhere, watching, and even the audience doesn’t avoid the omniscient gaze.
Metropolitan Opera regular Fikile Mvinjelwa returns to Cape Town to perform the title role. A founder member of the Cape Town Opera Studio, he left South Africa to pursue a successful international career. Some opera fans might recall his performance of Rigoletto in 2008 at Athlone’s Joseph Stone Auditorium. Mvinjelwa understudied Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera in the 2008/09 season and it is a role to which he often returns.
In 2010, The Washington Post described him as “the pick hit of the evening… a genuinely riveting, truly memorable tragic hero/avenger” in the Virginia Opera’s production of Rigoletto.
In addition to Mvinjelwa, Basson is working with a cast of South Africa’s foremost young singers, and says: “I find it inspiring to work with such dedicated and talented singers who are willing and able to try out anything you throw at themUnder the inspired guidance of Maestro Khan, it is a joy to see them ‘Fosbury Flop’, with growing finesse, over every difficulty, technical challenge and emotional demand in this dark and dangerous piece concocted by Verdi.”
Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition finalist Lukhanyo Moyake sings the role of the Duke of Mantua with what Basson describes as “a wonderful and wicked charm”. Last year Moyake won the International Emmerich Smola-Förderpreis in BadenBaden, Germany and travelled to Portugal in September to sing the role of José in Carmen at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos.
Noluvuyiso Mpofu takes the role of Gilda. Since stealing audiences’ hearts with her portrayal of Violetta in La Traviata in 2015, she has gained a huge local support base, and was awarded the Audience Prize, and second prize, at the Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition last year.
This is the last chance to see Mpofu perform as a member of Cape Town Opera as, following Rigoletto, she will launch her freelance international career.
Catch Rigoletto at Artscape on February 11, 14,16 and 18. Tickets through Computicket.