Peta Stewart
It may only be six years since Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha left Cape Town for London, then Bern and now Zurich, but every day she misses the sunshine of South Africans – the people as well as the weather – and can’t wait to be back. “Money can’t buy what we have in South Africa,” she says.
What makes her upcoming trip even more important is that she is bringing to the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra one of her favourite works – the Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss, which she will perform with the CPO under the direction of Kamal Khan on Thursday, 24 April 2025, at the Cape Town City Hall.
Although Masabane was brought up in Limpopo singing in church and school choirs, she wanted to study law. While her mother encouraged her to sing, she did her undergraduate degree at the Tshwane University of Technology. Life really began when she joined Opera UCT to do a post-graduate diploma in opera, and simultaneously joined the Young Artists’ Programme at Cape Town Opera. That was in 2017. She sang is several collaborations of both opera companies, and toured South Korea as Serena in Porgy and Bess with CTO, and sang Mandela’s mother in the Mandela Trilogy when she was just 23. “My voice was right for the part and they dressed me up to look older!”
Jette Parker Young Artist Programme
Her post-graduate diploma competed, she decided to apply both to the Young Artists’ programmes at the Royal Opera House (ROH) and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and both invited her to audition. With three rounds of auditions for each, rather like tennis where if you get knocked out in the first round you go home, planning was difficult. She realised that after passing Round 2 in London she could have a problem getting to Munich, but the ROH was generous and allowed her the time between round 2 and 3 to go to Munich, where she passed all the rounds and went back to London for Round 3 at ROH.
The ROH immediately offered her a place in the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme for 2019-2021, beginning in August 2019, and this was January. Then she received a call after her audition — could she cover for the role of Curra in La Forza del Destino – they wanted to give her the opportunity to be part of the production and learn.
Her teacher Virginia Davids, “was as excited as me. She told me that covering at Covent Garden was so important because not only would I be exposed to all aspects of opera at the highest level but I would also sing in rehearsals. What I didn’t know at the time was that Pappano was conducting and that the stars were Anna Netrebko, Jonas Kaufman and Ludevic Tezier …. I still had a Verdi Requiem to sing in Stellenbosch then I hurried back to London and missed my graduation at UCT!”
Then Covid came and all the opera houses closed.
“We, the young artists, were actually in a great place because we held master classes online, streamed operas and that’s when I learnt my first Liu, in Turandot, the role in which I will make a House Debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in September.”
Opera, however, isn’t the only genre of music she loves.
The power of music and text
“I like concerts and recitals for two reasons – the repertoire is wonderful and also one doesn’t have to stay away from home for months at a time as you do in opera. (Her South African actuarial analyst husband is with her in Zurich but can’t always travel with her.) I first sang them in recital and then in 2022 sang them with the Opera National Bordeaux. I have just been to the US and Brazil with the Strauss songs and the tour will finish in Cape Town for this season. I quickly fell in love with them, but my love has grown so much deeper over the years. As a young person, you don’t understand death. The songs start with spring and the hope of summer to come, but we never get to summer but go straight into autumn, realising we are losing summer and by the end of the cycle we know that we have had a beautiful life experience and that death is not a big monster, not dark. It’s the power of the music and the text by Hemann Hess.””
After London Masabane moved to become a House Soloist in the Stadt Theatre in Bern, where she says the wealth of roles she sang was enormous from Freya in Das Rheingold to Elisabetta in Don Carlo, Elettra in Idomeneo and Mathilde in Guillaume Tell, roles she performed several times and gained so much experience. Then she decided to go freelance and moved to Zurich. She now has a fast growing engagement calendar.
“There are several exciting engagements coming up, but until the opera houses announce them, I am sworn to secrecy,” she says. She leaves Cape Town to sing in America, the back to Baden. Zurich is so centrally located for my career at the moment.”
What: CPO Autumn Symphonies at the City Hall
Who: Soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha and Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra
When: 24 April 2025
Where: Cape Town City Hall
Tickets: Artscape Dial-A-Seat 021 421 7695 and Webtickets
Dress rehearsal tickets: Quicket
WS
