| Get your tickets for OperaMania now |
|
|
|
| Written by Lucille Davie | |
| Tuesday, 01 April 2008 | |
|
Mad, fab and fantastic to see, OperaMania is turning opera on its head. With a cast of 12, "it will look like the biggest show in the world". 
Larger than life classical stage sets set the scene for great things to happen on stage
IMAGINE all the great opera arias you can think of, roll them into one show, add amazing stage settings, superb voices, wonderful costumes, a bit of nudity - and you've got OperaMania. The show, in rehearsal right now, is to hit the stage of the Nelson Mandela Theatre from 19 April, and you're warned not to come with a black tie - it will be blown off. The show is billed as a "piccolo magnificio epic in tre acto's fiva seena's four interludio's an intermezzo uno preludio and no interval". The sponsors and producers of OperaMania hope that this will be the breakthrough show that will create a truly South African theatrical musical industry that will be exported overseas and cross-pollinate with long-standing, highly successful shows around the world. "We are hoping to create a major ripple internationally," says Deon Opperman, the chief executive of Tanstaafl Holdings, the sponsors. Designer-director Andrew Botha, with 30 years of work under his belt, started his career with set designs for Hello Dolly. He has since been a designer on more than a thousand projects, including The Marriage of Figaro, Camelot, Sweeney Todd, My Fair Lady, Little Shop of Horrors and, most recently, Queen of the Opera and Dream. He has worked in Greece, South Korea, Australia, China, Holland, Russia and Malaysia. "There has been nothing in the world like this - it is a world first," he says. Although a "compilation show", with no linear story, the stage will come alive with continuous set and costume changes, at times filled with sets going up 16 storeys. They will swing between a Hindu Bollywood scene and "romantic Japanese madness", to a "dreadful drag queen" and images of Maria Callas. The nudity will be subtle, stresses Botha. "There are some naughty bits but you can bring your mom." The cast will consist of six singers; Robert Finlayson, Angela Kilian, Andrea Shine, Kathy Henderson, Cobus Venter and Reinhardt Nel will sing their way through the arias from Carmen, La Traviata, La Boheme, Madame Butterfly, The Marriage of Figaro and many more. Although the songs will be given a contemporary feel, their "musical integrity will remain intact". Six dancers will accompany the singers. "Like the Cirque de Soleil, this controversial spectacle beggars description and promises an evening of passionate opera arias, dazzling set designs, bodies to die for and much, much more to leave you gasping," says the press statement. "From dangerous women to a small, joyous Mozart picnic, to an exotic underwater scene to a masked party in hell, this will truly be opera like you have never seen it before! Opera just will never be the same again." The dancers are Anton Labuschagne, Danielle Mann, Ebrahim Medell, Janine Bowers, Sibusiso Radebe and Yaron "Blaze" Blasbalg. Spinning the discs will be Charl-Johan Lingenfelder, in charge of re-orchestrating the classic composers' music. Lingenfelder has a long list of productions for which he has been musical director, including Almost the Sound of Music, ABBA(toir), Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar and Hairspray. He composed the music for The Secret Love Life of Ophelia, Cleopatra, Cinderella of the Cape Flats, and 50 South African plays, television programmes and films. His expertise covers all musical genres, from classical to progressive rock, experimental to hip-hop. Lingenfelder admits this is a "massive undertaking" in which he has approached the opera singers unconventionally and said: "I want you to scream that." He says, for example, that he has re-interpreted Madam Butterfly with Japanese instruments. "Every day has been a journey for us - it has been great, you don't do this with Phantom of the Opera." Stan Knight is doing the lighting and set design. He has worked on 40 shows, including The Magic Flute, Minstrel Follies, Lord of the Flies, Maru, My Fair Lady, Soweto Story, Fiddler on the Roof and The King and I. He has received awards for lighting in Barnum, Death of a Salesman and Martian Chronicles. He says he designed the sets in three dimensions, then reduced them to flat printed images, thereby reducing the cost to the third of conventional set design. "It will look like the biggest show in the world, with 12 people," he says, adding that he is very excited to be doing it. The show is being sponsored to the tune of R2,2-million by Packed House Productions, a subsidiary of Tanstaafl Holdings. OperaMania runs from 19 April for three-and-a-half weeks at the Nelson Mandela Theatre, in the Johannesburg Civic Theatre complex. Related stories: |
