passionate singing. south african soprano masabane cecilia rangwanasha was born injohannesburg in 1993, and has come a long way in a short time. cecilia is a protege of the royal opera house where i am on the board of trustees, so i have come along to find out more about how she made it to one of the world s
how well we are doing. we know that performers in the past in opera, that the males would have to blacken their face to play 0thello. how does that make you feel? the stories we are telling does not discriminate, does not choose who or how you look like, where you come from, and it doesn t matter who is telling the story. it is the story of the character we are telling that should be important. # she wasn t wearing slacks.#. cecilia would like to be seen as a role model for black artists wanting to make it in opera. so, i think slowly but surely, we are going to have more people of colour singing
cecilia is a special talent, and it s notjust because of her voice, which is of course glorious, and especially for her age as well. she is an outstanding talent, considering how young she is. but it is also the fabulous warmth she brings to her performing. there is a real humanity and depth of experience which belies her age, and that s what communicates to an audience, and why they are so excited when they see and hear her on stage. now meet french tenor benjamin bernheim, who has big ideas about the future of opera. he is already in great demand at opera houses all over the world.
applause. south african soprano masabane cecilia rangwanasha was born injohannesburg in 1993, and has come a long way in a short time. cecilia is a protege of the royal opera house where i am on the board of trustees, so i have come along to find out more about how she made it to one of the world s leading opera houses. i was singing as a child. my mum said i was a singing baby, so i would sing my name as i was growing up. and then ijoined the church choir, and ijoined the school choir. i took part in the singing
competitions and that was when my mum saw that i actually loved singing. when i finished school she asked what i wanted to study and i said law. and she said, why not music because you are already singing? . and i said actually this is what i wanted to do but i was afraid to say it because, you know, they are going to say, what is opera? cecilia, as her mother called her, studied music at the tshwane university of technology in pretoria, and then at cape town university, where she joined the opera company in the city, and that is when the competitions got serious. after an audition in 2019, she won a coveted place on the young artists programme here at the royal opera house. many hundreds apply, but only a handful are successful for each programme.