On Friday 11 April opera tenor Stéfan Louw’s own initiative, the Youth Audience Development Programme, will have produced three young women that will take to the stage at the Roodepoort Theatre. The Malinga sisters will be on stage as choristers for his own production of Aria! Opera for Everyone — La Traviata with the acclaimed soprano Anina Wasserman.
The launch of the Programme in 2013 aligns with the Theatre’s mission and vision to increase youth involvement in performing arts. In addition the programme provides free seats at Louw’s productions to young residents between the ages of 12 and 19. A lot of these young people are also from organisations such as the Outreach Foundation’s Hillbrow Theatre Project.
Louw explained to the Record that he hopes to contribute to building not only sustainable audiences for opera in the future, but also “to find new artists that will ensure [that] the opera culture will not become extinct”. He is widely considered as one of South Africa’s top opera tenors, and has been producing Aria! Opera for Everyone at the Theatre for the past three years. His hope is to have a youth orchestra accompany each of the six concerts this year, however, it could not be realised due to the short rehearsal time between concerts. This tight schedule might have taken its toll on the youth’s academic studies, music studies and other orchestra concerts. To that end, the remainder of the 2014 concerts will continue with piano accompaniment by Eugene Joubert. However, the production in which the youth are involved is not to be missed this April.
Aria! Opera for Everyone — La Traviata is brought to residents in proud association with the Roodepoort Theatre. Tickets are on sale at R120 per person.
To book tickets, contact Nevolan Reddy on 011 674 1357.
