Andrew Verster - from John Galliano to Princess Magogo
Renowned South African painter, Andrew Verster, finds his inspiration in the most unusual sources. Naming fashion designers John Galliano and Vivienne Westwood amongst the people he would most like to meet, he refers to them as inventive geniuses whose work he calls “… daring and outrageous. Totally thrilling” and then goes on to say: “If I went to Paris or London I'd rather see one of their shows than any art exhibition or gallery. Someone should commission them each to design an opera - costumes and sets.”
This is exactly what he did when the opportunity presented itself with the production of the first South African opera sung in Zulu, Princess Magogo kaDinuzulu. Asked how he got involved in this role, Andrew explains: “I happened to say to Sandra de Villiers (CEO of Opera Africa) whom I had only just met, that I thought the sets and costumes of their production of Carmen were horrible, but the singing divine. ‘Could you do better?’ she asked. ‘Yes’, I said. It wasn’t long before she asked me to join Opera Africa.” Since then, Verster has created the costumes for operas including Faust, Rigoletto and Opera Africa’s first truly South African opera, Princess Magogo. His apprenticeship was a sound investment for Opera Africa.
When Opera Africa, under the guidance of Sandra de Villiers, took the bold step to create and stage Princess Magogo kaDinuzulu, they new that they had bitten of a massive chunk and that guarantees for success did not exist. They were confronted with the views of the traditional and staunch opera supporters who demanded the tried and tested works of Verdi, Mozart, Wagner and Donizetti, set against the European model and sung by established famous voices – opera in its “purest” form as they would describe it. An opera from Africa somehow does not seem to fit this mould.
They also had to face the fact that opera as a medium was relatively unknown to the majority of South Africans, as well as to the younger generation who often perceive opera as Eurocentric, elitist, foreign and difficult to understand.
Yet they went on to commission a work of substance that took not only South Africa by storm, but made a significant impression on audiences abroad. Its world premiere at the Durban Playhouse in May 2002 attracted worldwide interest. It was broadcast live to the USA, UK and Europe by WFMT Radio Networks in Chicago. It was subsequently staged at the South African State Theatre, the Centenary Celebration of the Ravinia Festival in Chicago (2004), Het Muziektheater in Amsterdam (2005) and Den Norske Opera in Oslo (2007). It was taken on a national tour to the Western and Eastern Cape in 2006.
How did they do it? Simple. By sticking to the basic formula of pure opera: take a good story, give it great music and lyrics, work in a good dose of traditional songs and dance, find the best voices to suit the material and present it all in spectacular costumes against mind-blowing backdrops, props and sets to send audiences into a wonderland of music, rhythm, colour and spectacle.
They found the perfect storyline in the life of the legendary Princess Magogo, mother of former foreign affairs minister, Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who used her singing and her unbridled love for the Zulu culture, to help to unite a nation that was traumatically divided. To crown it all, she sacrificed her love for the man of her dreams to achieve this, marrying a prince for the sake of national unity.
To turn the story into an opera, they left the music to the skills of a master, Prof. Mzilikazi Khumalo, to write and Michael Hankison to do the orchestration. This was done to the libretto provided by published poet, Themba Msimang. The voice of the Princess in the original version was that of Sibongile Khumalo, already globally recognized as a leading soprano. In the new production, due to premiere in Pretoria’s State Theatre on Saturday, 28 March 2009, the role of Princess Magogo will be sung by a very promising new face to the stages of opera, Tina Mene, whilst brilliant rising star, Kelebogile Boikanyo will be seen as her mother, Queen Silomo.
But one aspect remained to be addressed: the design of costumes and sets. Andrew Verster rose to the occasion in spectacular fashion (no pun intended). He was attracted to the story of the Princess long before they commissioned the opera, having listened to her songs on an LP he had bought years before.
When Sandra raised the possibility of an opera in Zulu, Andrew did not hesitate. He believed that ordinary people loved opera wholeheartedly, without inhibitions or pretence, long before it gained the perception as an exclusive genre for the rich. He immersed himself in the project with all the passion art lovers across South Africa had known him for.
The theme of this opera is timeless. People can relate to it and give it perpetuity. Andrew’s philosophical approach to the job is based on its timelessness. The very nature of opera as an art form, offers the designer considerable license to deviate from reality and to be the anachronistic and eclectic artist that Andrew Verster is. Yet, because the story and the princess are in their way sacred to the Zulu nation, there were also constraints which he could not ignore. It had to be set in Africa and it had to be sung in Zulu.
Working in an abstract idiom, his sets avoid naturalism. The stage is totally bare except for a great red-earth circle in the centre where the performance happens. Outside the circle is another world. The various locations of the story are suggested by a set of simple props. Gigantic pieces of hand stitched black cloth represent the court. Images of Zulu artefacts are drawn on them in white appliquè line. In an earlier scene the homecoming is celebrated against a colourful and joyful, collection of banners with images of spears, six metres high, in a rainbow of luminous fabrics. As Zulu is a culture rich in symbolism, Andrew as a non-Zulu navigated his way through cultural correctness with the guidance of Dr Buthelezi. All of his designs were checked with him before the costumes and sets were made.
With the magnificent costumes, Andrew respected history and tradition more accurately, using exaggerated shapes, forms and colours to offer the audience the feast for the eye opera demands. The headdresses are almost twice the size of the real thing. In the same way he used colour to assist audiences to interpret what is happening correctly, creating moods, setting atmosphere and highlighting the less obvious, all to the dictates of the opera.
For all the designs he plundered Africa. Says Andrew: “I wanted the Princess to belong not just to the Zulu nation or South Africa, but to the whole of Africa. She was a living encyclopaedia of a culture which may well have vanished had she not preserved it. Her example has to be followed if the African Renaissance is to mean anything – the songs, the dances, the rituals, the beliefs, the language, the artifacts, the histories and stories.”
He studied and absorbed everything he could find in books, photographs and museums. They visited the Princess’s home and he took photographs before making countless drawings. The result is a spectacle that members of the audience may believe to be authentic, but not one single costume on the stage can take its place in a cultural or historical museum. All the fabrics are contemporary and come from as far afield as other parts of Africa, Europe and even the Far East.
The lavish women’s dresses were based on West African styles – the full skirts, the puffed sleeves, the tight bodices. Ironically this high African chic evolved from Victorian examples. “Like so much in Africa the colonial past is stood on its head and is born again” says Verster. This also applies to the dress worn by the princess. He wanted her to belong to all of Africa and the world and therefore designed a costume for her that she could never have worn. Its symbolism carries its own message.
Asked how he made the transition from painting to opera design, Verster explained: “I am the same person. Only the materials and the boundaries of the problems change. I think in paint when I work on canvas and in ink when working on paper. The difference however is in the making. As I cannot sew, cut a pattern or weave a stitch, I had to collaborate with people who are experts and artists in those fields. These collaborations have all opened my eyes to possibilities I would never have dreamed of.”
Andrew Verster attended Jeppe Boys High in Johannesburg where he was born. Because the school did not offer the subject, he took art lessons from a Mrs Cayzer who lived close by. He always knew that he wanted to be an artist and drew for as long as he could remember. “On my first day at school, I kicked up a fuss and wanted to go home. ‘Give him some plasticine’, my mother said to my teacher, ‘and he’ll be happy’. She did. And I was.” says Verster.
He loves the art of Hockney passionately. Here was an artist who, like Galliano, takes the mundane of everyday life and makes it significant by drawing it with love. His subject matter in itself is never important. He also admires South African artist, Bronwen Findlay’s work. “She thinks in paint, which is quite rare”, says Andrew, who views her work as the closest thing to music in another language.
So what makes art? Andrew draws on the work of Monet to explain: “Monet’s late water lilies are the best lesson in the language of paint. Close up it is all gesture and energy. Blobs of paint. As you move back these apparently haphazard marks turn into leaves and flowers and water in perspective. Close up it is one thing – just material – further way is it another – an image. If it doesn’t do this, it is not art, but illustration. There has to be that transition.”
See this transition in Andrew Vesrster’s designs when Princess Magogo opens!
This is exactly what he did when the opportunity presented itself with the production of the first South African opera sung in Zulu, Princess Magogo kaDinuzulu. Asked how he got involved in this role, Andrew explains: “I happened to say to Sandra de Villiers (CEO of Opera Africa) whom I had only just met, that I thought the sets and costumes of their production of Carmen were horrible, but the singing divine. ‘Could you do better?’ she asked. ‘Yes’, I said. It wasn’t long before she asked me to join Opera Africa.” Since then, Verster has created the costumes for operas including Faust, Rigoletto and Opera Africa’s first truly South African opera, Princess Magogo. His apprenticeship was a sound investment for Opera Africa.
When Opera Africa, under the guidance of Sandra de Villiers, took the bold step to create and stage Princess Magogo kaDinuzulu, they new that they had bitten of a massive chunk and that guarantees for success did not exist. They were confronted with the views of the traditional and staunch opera supporters who demanded the tried and tested works of Verdi, Mozart, Wagner and Donizetti, set against the European model and sung by established famous voices – opera in its “purest” form as they would describe it. An opera from Africa somehow does not seem to fit this mould.
They also had to face the fact that opera as a medium was relatively unknown to the majority of South Africans, as well as to the younger generation who often perceive opera as Eurocentric, elitist, foreign and difficult to understand.
Yet they went on to commission a work of substance that took not only South Africa by storm, but made a significant impression on audiences abroad. Its world premiere at the Durban Playhouse in May 2002 attracted worldwide interest. It was broadcast live to the USA, UK and Europe by WFMT Radio Networks in Chicago. It was subsequently staged at the South African State Theatre, the Centenary Celebration of the Ravinia Festival in Chicago (2004), Het Muziektheater in Amsterdam (2005) and Den Norske Opera in Oslo (2007). It was taken on a national tour to the Western and Eastern Cape in 2006.
How did they do it? Simple. By sticking to the basic formula of pure opera: take a good story, give it great music and lyrics, work in a good dose of traditional songs and dance, find the best voices to suit the material and present it all in spectacular costumes against mind-blowing backdrops, props and sets to send audiences into a wonderland of music, rhythm, colour and spectacle.
They found the perfect storyline in the life of the legendary Princess Magogo, mother of former foreign affairs minister, Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who used her singing and her unbridled love for the Zulu culture, to help to unite a nation that was traumatically divided. To crown it all, she sacrificed her love for the man of her dreams to achieve this, marrying a prince for the sake of national unity.
To turn the story into an opera, they left the music to the skills of a master, Prof. Mzilikazi Khumalo, to write and Michael Hankison to do the orchestration. This was done to the libretto provided by published poet, Themba Msimang. The voice of the Princess in the original version was that of Sibongile Khumalo, already globally recognized as a leading soprano. In the new production, due to premiere in Pretoria’s State Theatre on Saturday, 28 March 2009, the role of Princess Magogo will be sung by a very promising new face to the stages of opera, Tina Mene, whilst brilliant rising star, Kelebogile Boikanyo will be seen as her mother, Queen Silomo.
But one aspect remained to be addressed: the design of costumes and sets. Andrew Verster rose to the occasion in spectacular fashion (no pun intended). He was attracted to the story of the Princess long before they commissioned the opera, having listened to her songs on an LP he had bought years before.
When Sandra raised the possibility of an opera in Zulu, Andrew did not hesitate. He believed that ordinary people loved opera wholeheartedly, without inhibitions or pretence, long before it gained the perception as an exclusive genre for the rich. He immersed himself in the project with all the passion art lovers across South Africa had known him for.
The theme of this opera is timeless. People can relate to it and give it perpetuity. Andrew’s philosophical approach to the job is based on its timelessness. The very nature of opera as an art form, offers the designer considerable license to deviate from reality and to be the anachronistic and eclectic artist that Andrew Verster is. Yet, because the story and the princess are in their way sacred to the Zulu nation, there were also constraints which he could not ignore. It had to be set in Africa and it had to be sung in Zulu.
Working in an abstract idiom, his sets avoid naturalism. The stage is totally bare except for a great red-earth circle in the centre where the performance happens. Outside the circle is another world. The various locations of the story are suggested by a set of simple props. Gigantic pieces of hand stitched black cloth represent the court. Images of Zulu artefacts are drawn on them in white appliquè line. In an earlier scene the homecoming is celebrated against a colourful and joyful, collection of banners with images of spears, six metres high, in a rainbow of luminous fabrics. As Zulu is a culture rich in symbolism, Andrew as a non-Zulu navigated his way through cultural correctness with the guidance of Dr Buthelezi. All of his designs were checked with him before the costumes and sets were made.
With the magnificent costumes, Andrew respected history and tradition more accurately, using exaggerated shapes, forms and colours to offer the audience the feast for the eye opera demands. The headdresses are almost twice the size of the real thing. In the same way he used colour to assist audiences to interpret what is happening correctly, creating moods, setting atmosphere and highlighting the less obvious, all to the dictates of the opera.
For all the designs he plundered Africa. Says Andrew: “I wanted the Princess to belong not just to the Zulu nation or South Africa, but to the whole of Africa. She was a living encyclopaedia of a culture which may well have vanished had she not preserved it. Her example has to be followed if the African Renaissance is to mean anything – the songs, the dances, the rituals, the beliefs, the language, the artifacts, the histories and stories.”
He studied and absorbed everything he could find in books, photographs and museums. They visited the Princess’s home and he took photographs before making countless drawings. The result is a spectacle that members of the audience may believe to be authentic, but not one single costume on the stage can take its place in a cultural or historical museum. All the fabrics are contemporary and come from as far afield as other parts of Africa, Europe and even the Far East.
The lavish women’s dresses were based on West African styles – the full skirts, the puffed sleeves, the tight bodices. Ironically this high African chic evolved from Victorian examples. “Like so much in Africa the colonial past is stood on its head and is born again” says Verster. This also applies to the dress worn by the princess. He wanted her to belong to all of Africa and the world and therefore designed a costume for her that she could never have worn. Its symbolism carries its own message.
Asked how he made the transition from painting to opera design, Verster explained: “I am the same person. Only the materials and the boundaries of the problems change. I think in paint when I work on canvas and in ink when working on paper. The difference however is in the making. As I cannot sew, cut a pattern or weave a stitch, I had to collaborate with people who are experts and artists in those fields. These collaborations have all opened my eyes to possibilities I would never have dreamed of.”
Andrew Verster attended Jeppe Boys High in Johannesburg where he was born. Because the school did not offer the subject, he took art lessons from a Mrs Cayzer who lived close by. He always knew that he wanted to be an artist and drew for as long as he could remember. “On my first day at school, I kicked up a fuss and wanted to go home. ‘Give him some plasticine’, my mother said to my teacher, ‘and he’ll be happy’. She did. And I was.” says Verster.
He loves the art of Hockney passionately. Here was an artist who, like Galliano, takes the mundane of everyday life and makes it significant by drawing it with love. His subject matter in itself is never important. He also admires South African artist, Bronwen Findlay’s work. “She thinks in paint, which is quite rare”, says Andrew, who views her work as the closest thing to music in another language.
So what makes art? Andrew draws on the work of Monet to explain: “Monet’s late water lilies are the best lesson in the language of paint. Close up it is all gesture and energy. Blobs of paint. As you move back these apparently haphazard marks turn into leaves and flowers and water in perspective. Close up it is one thing – just material – further way is it another – an image. If it doesn’t do this, it is not art, but illustration. There has to be that transition.”
See this transition in Andrew Vesrster’s designs when Princess Magogo opens!