Return of the company’s highly acclaimed Porgy and Bess Following its sell-out debut performances at Wales Millennium Centre in 2009, Cape Town Opera returns to the Centre with the highly anticipated European premiere of Mandela Trilogy, plus the acclaimed Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Mandela Trilogy 20 & 21 June Written and directed by Michael Williams with music by Allan Stephenson, Mike Campbell and Peter Louis van Dijk, it is a musical tribute to the legendary Nelson Mandela and dramatises key periods of his extraordinary life in different musical styles. Traditional Xhosa songs and jazz melodies are woven into a classical framework that follows Mandela from a young man in the Transkei, to revolutionary in the townships at the onset of apartheid, to Robben Island prisoner and the final walk to freedom. The company brings the celebrated Voice of the Nation Chorus and an entirely South African cast to the UK for Mandela Trilogy in a revised version of the production premiered in South Africa in 2010. The performances of Mandela Trilogy are produced in association with Wales Millennium Centre and are supported by the Centre’s Founding Patron Sir Donald Gordon. Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess 23- 24 June Relocated to the depression-ravaged townships of Soweto, Cape Town Opera has made this production of Porgy and Bess its very own, as the search for hope and happiness - amidst poverty and hardship - unfolds in a poignant tale of love and deprivation. Porgy and Bess is one of the great icons of American music theatre, known around the world as ‘the peoples’ opera’. Written in 1935 and originally portraying the 1920s life of America’s Deep South, this compelling work contains some of the most stirring and ever-lasting songs including Summertime, I got plenty of nuttin’, It ain’t necessarily so, and I loves you Porgy. As strategic partners, Cape Town Opera’s collaborative and exchange projects with Wales Millennium Centre are part of a growing legacy of South African businessman and philanthropist, Donald Gordon, after whom the main auditorium is named. As well as the opera company visits to Cardiff, Cape Town Opera’s Voice of the Nation Chorus also has a lifelong relationship with the Centre, having appeared at its grand opening in 2004 and its fifth birthday season. There will be a workshop and educational programme built around the June 2012 performances. For tickets and further information visit www.wmc.org.uk Cape Town Opera’s tour of Porgy and Bess begins at the Birmingham Hippodrome (6-9 June) and continues to Edinburgh Festival Theatre (15-16 June), Wales Millennium Centre (23-24 June), Canterbury Marlow Theatre (27-30 June), Southampton Mayflower (4-7 July), London Coliseum (11-21 July). Mandela Trilogy is performed at Wales Millennium Centre only (20-21 June) |
| Wales Millennium Centre web site: www.wmc.org.uk |
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012 |
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