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. many of those singers who come from all over the world - are in london for the first. time, so of course we have