(Afrik. Kaapstad).
Legislative capital of South Africa, capital of the Western Cape Province and the first European settlement in South Africa. Early South African music history is that of Cape Town; having become a major cultural centre, it maintains some of the most important institutions in the country.
The first university was the University of the Cape of Good Hope (founded 1873), an examining body which instituted the music examination system in 1894. The faculty of music at the University of Cape Town was established in 1923. Until 1998 it comprised the music department (the South African College of Music) and the School of Dance (previously the Ballet School). The music department developed from the South African College of Music, started by Mme Niay-Darrol in 1910. W.H. Bell headed the South African College of Music from 1911 and became the first incumbent of the chair of music when the school was incorporated into the university. The department remained under his direction until the mid-1930s. Under Erik Chisholm (1946–65) the department was remodelled and improved so that it enjoys a high reputation in South Africa’s musical education; its public activities, especially in opera, increased markedly. Chisholm established the University Opera Company in 1951 and the Opera School in 1954, both under Gregorio Fiasconaro. In 1956 a group from the department toured England and Scotland with concerts and opera presentations; in London the Opera Company presented the first staged performances of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle in Britain. Regular public concerts are given by the department’s choral and instrumental ensembles and by individual staff and students, usually at university halls. Apart from Western music, the department offers courses in African music and jazz. The extensive W.H. Bell Music Library includes material donated in 1958 by the South African branch of the ISCM (founded by Chisholm in 1948). The department houses the world-renowned Kirby Collection of African and European instruments. The Baxter theatre complex, which includes a concert hall and is attached to the university, was opened in 1977.
The Opera School offers all possible aspects of training. Its associated opera company was responsible (with the Eoan Group) for virtually all opera productions before the formation of the Cape Performing Arts Board (CAPAB) in 1963; it has played a primary role in fostering opera in South Africa through extensive tours and enterprising repertory and frequently collaborates with CAPAB in opera productions. Large-scale productions were accompanied by the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra (later the Cape Town SO) until 1970, while shorter operas, sometimes student productions, are accompanied by the university orchestra at the university’s Baxter Theatre and Little Theatre. The company’s repertory of about 50 operas has included four world premičres: John Joubert’s Silas Marner (1961) and three Chisholm operas. From the beginning of 1999 the Faculty of Music was incorporated into a restructured humanities faculty at the University of Cape Town; the South African College of Music and the School of Dance operate as separate departments in the new faculty. There is a small music department in the faculty of education at the University of the Western Cape. It concentrates on music as part of a degree in education.
Cape Town’s operatic life was further benefited by the Eoan Group, a welfare and cultural organization, founded in 1934. Under the musical direction of Joseph Manca it produced a number of operettas until 1956. In that year it staged La traviata and, until Manca’s retirement in 1977, it gave regular seasons (mainly from the Italian repertory) and toured South Africa. This was a spare-time activity for all company members, with no financial remuneration. Accompanied by the city orchestra, productions were given at the City Hall and the now defunct Alhambra Theatre. The group’s cultural centre and small attached theatre, the Joseph Stone Auditorium, opened in 1969 to serve as a training centre and principal hall. Since 1977 its activities have gradually declined.
Since the formation of the provincial arts councils in 1963, opera has been presented mainly by CAPAB, which has its headquarters in Cape Town. CAPAB at first performed at a number of venues with the assistance of the University Opera Company. The Nico Malan theatre complex (now known as the ‘Nico’) opened in 1971, since when opera and ballet have been given in its 1204-seat opera house. Emphasis is on the standard Italian and German repertory. Since 1994 the South African government has gradually withdrawn subsidies for the arts councils, and provincial councils are being phased out. The CAPAB opera company has been privatized.
The Cape Town SO was the oldest professional symphony orchestra in South Africa and played a primary role in the musical life of the city. Founded in 1914 under Theophil Wendt as the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra, it initially had 18 players; it gave regular public concerts and several national tours, as well as undertaking a visit to England in 1925. Its activities changed in 1971 with the formation of the CAPAB Orchestra, which took over playing for all the opera and ballet seasons except the Eoan Group’s; it concentrated mainly on weekly symphony and light classical concerts. Renamed the Cape Town SO in 1968, it had about 80 members, augmented to over 100 when necessary; a symphony choir was established in 1973. Conductors and performers of international calibre appeared with the orchestra (Pierre Fournier gave his first concerto performance with it). The permanent conductor system was replaced by a series of guest conductors in 1971. The orchestra was privatized in 1996.
CAPAB’s orchestra was established with David Tidboald as principal conductor; among the organization’s activities were provincial tours, city performances of solo and ensemble recitals and orchestral concerts as well as opera and ballet seasons. Works commissioned and given world premičres include Badings’s Klaagzang and Gideon Fagan’s My Lewe. The Cape Town SO and the CAPAB Orchestra merged in 1997 to form the Cape Town PO. It presents a number of orchestral concerts and accompanies seasons for the opera and dance companies.
The Cape Town Concert Club imports many international artists. There are also various amateur orchestral and choral societies that contribute considerably to the musical life of the city, especially in the field of sacred music.
R. von Geyso: ‘The South African College of Music, University of Cape Town’, Lantern, xii/1 (1962–3), 16
E. Rosenthal: Fifty Years of the Cape Town Orchestra (Cape Town, 1964)
J. Bouws: Die musieklewe van Kaapstad 1800–1850, en sy verhouding tot die musiekkultuur van Wes-Europa (Cape Town, 1966)
A.E.B. Smith: An Historical Survey of the Organs and Organists of St. George’s Cathedral, Cape Town, from 1834 to 1952 (diss., Rhodes U., 1967)
E. Rosenthal: 125 Years of Music in South Africa: Darter’s Jubilee (Cape Town, 1969)
Cape Town Symphony Orchestra Diamond Jubilee 1914–1974 (Cape Town, 1974) [souvenir programme]
D. Talbot: For the Love of Singing: 50 Years of Opera at UCT (Cape Town, 1978)
For additional bibliography see South africa.
CAROLINE MEARS/JAMES MAY