COLLATION 4 | THE MASKANDALIFICATION OF OPERA

In April 2026, The Centre for the Less Good Idea presents COLLATION 4 | The Maskandalification of Opera.

Curated by The Centre’s Impresario Neo Muyanga, the project explores the genre of opera from its periphery, with an aim to incubate and inspire new experimental approaches to opera.

COLLATION 4 | The Maskandalification of Opera focuses on what innovation and accessibility could mean when the art form is approached from a decidedly South African perspective, and discovering what this perspective allows us to bring back to the operatic genre.

Ten new miniature operas by South African composers will be created. These composers will hand over their scores and concepts to an ensemble of musicians, singers and dramaturges, who will bring the dramatic musical stories to life over the course of a three-day mini festival.

Artists invited to participate in The Maskandalification of Opera are Cara Stacy, Danielle Bowler, Ann Masina, Lebo Mashile, Nosipho Qhayiso and MandiFeze to name a few.

Exploring contemporary opera from the Global South

South Africa has also become globally recognised as a nation that consistently produces some of the world’s highest calibre opera singers and opera practitioners. However, South African practitioners rarely gather to explore and articulate what it takes to make opera both aesthetically and logistically from our position outside of the reticulated networks of the global north.

“Opera is in crisis, worldwide, facing audience numbers that are in decline,” says Muyanga. “And so The Centre, which is an incubator space that explores new work and shares it with the rest of the world, feels perfectly positioned to start experimenting and exploring a contemporary opera from South Africa, from the Global South, in the 21st Century.”

The ‘Maskandalification’ of opera

Urban Zulu folk music is said to be termed ‘uMaskanda' because the itinerant musician has the power to turn, reset, or ‘khanda’ any instrument into one that ’speaks’ isiZulu.

“We take inspiration from this posture, and aim to ‘khanda’ our opera so that it sounds as we do,” explains Muyanga. “And since – as the joke goes – the letter ‘r’ gets replaced with the letter ‘l’ in spoken isiZulu, we have termed our experiment the ‘maskandalification’ of opera.”

COLLATION 4 | The Maskandalification of Opera took place at The Centre for the Less Good Idea from 23 to 25 April 2026.

— David Mann

PRODUCTION FOR THE CENTRE

SPECIAL THANKS

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE STUDIO

Linda Leibowitz, Natalie Dembo, Damon Garstang, Anne McIlleron, Anne Blom, Taryn Buccellato, Jessica Jones, Chris-Waldo de Wet, Jacques van Staden, Joey Netshiombo, Diego Sillands & Thandi Nkabinde

THE OFFICE performing arts + film