JACOBI de VILLIERS

I am back from an incredible time in Berlin. It was a month of slow, focused and concentrated singing & living – no distractions, no friends or family other than my instructor and her partner… Like a dream, but also extremely challenging.

During the entire month I went through an intensive schedule of singing lessons, and during the gaps I would sit in on lessons that my instructor was giving to students from as far as Australia, Vienna and Stockholm… or I would sit in during my instructor’s coachings for a concert version of Walküre, which she will be performing with Bryn Terfel in September this year at Berlin Phil.

My time was saturated with lessons, conversations about singing and ongoing encouragement from my instructor. I also received tickets for a few splendid operas such as Don Carlo, Boris Godunov and Medea. I was fortunate enough to see my instructor perform at Bayreuth in Götterdämmerung.

She has a few students singing in the Bayreuth Chorus, and through her, I got the chance to audition for the Bayreuth Chorus (an audition squeezed in during the intermission between Act 2 and 3 of Götterdammerung!). The opera started at 16h00 and ended at 22h30! No jokes. But it was thrilling, the theatre, the music, the infamously uncomfortable wooden seats of the Wagner Festspielhaus!

I am back in South Africa and rehearsals for La Cenerentola with the South African College of Music are in full swing – I have been cast as one of the ‘evil’ sisters in this dramatic and humorous retelling of the Cinderella story. I will perform on opening night, 5 September, and again on 8 September, at the Baxter Concert Hall. It is a semi-staged version, with orchestra directed by Claudia Blersch from Opera Zürich and with Maestro Jochen Rieder.

We are loving every second of Rossini’s delightful music – this is the Grand Prix of singing (high speed and frantic!) and I must agree with the Director, Rossini’s best work.

Whilst in Berlin, I also got the news that I will be singing the alto solo part of my first oratorio, Elijah, on the 20th of October in the Jammie Hall.

Then there is Magic Flute at the end of the year at Artscape Theatre (23 November – 10 December). It is an exciting year ahead! Hope to see some of you at these occasions.

Mainly, I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your support for this trip and also for being part of my journey. I would not have been able to get there and come this far if it wasn’t for your kind support.

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