From the concert hall to beneath the stars, Vienna in the Park brings the golden age of Viennese music to the Maynardville Open-Air Theatre on 7 and 14 March. Cape Town Opera’s House Soloists, Judith Neilson Young Artists and Vocal Ensemble, together with the CTO Children’s Chorus will perform glorious selections filled with waltzes, wit, romance and the irresistible spirit of a Viennese operetta.
Opera Blocks comes to libraries across the Mother City from 16 to 20 March, offering babies and toddlers aged 0–5 their first encounter with live opera through costumes, colour, lighting and beautiful singing. Opera in Your Neighbourhood then brings CTO’s award-winning Vocal Ensemble and the Judith Neilson Young artists to community halls across the city in a free concert series presented in partnership with the City of Cape Town.
As Easter approaches, Cape Town Opera once again joins the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bernard Gueller for the Beethoven Celebration at the Paarl Toringkerk on 27 March. Each year features a different work from the great vocal repertoire, performed by CTO’s House Soloists, Vocal Ensemble and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. Sacred music in a church built for its sound offers a powerful encounter with this cherished choral and orchestral tradition and CTO is thrilled to be celebrating Beethoven’s 200th year with this performance.
May brings one of opera’s great thrillers to Artscape as Cape Town Opera presents Verdi’s Rigoletto, directed by Magdalene Minnaar with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Kamal Khan, from 19 to 30 May. A tragedy of power, revenge and a father’s love, the opera follows Rigoletto, a jester at a corrupt court, whose attempts to protect his daughter Gilda set a devastating chain of events in motion. With Verdi’s blazing score, including ‘La donna è mobile’ and one of opera’s most shattering finales, Rigoletto is grand-scale opera at its most dramatic.
The next generation takes centre stage at Artscape on 12 June for Cape Town Opera’s inaugural Stars of the Future Gala Concert. The concert brings together the CTO Children’s Chorus, secondary school singers from the Foundation Studio and postgraduate Judith Neilson Young Artists, showcasing the voices that will shape opera in South Africa for years to come. Jan Hugo will conduct the instrumental ensemble.
Following sold-out performances and stellar reviews, Sondheim’s A Little Night Music starring the same cast returns to Theatre on the Bay from 28 June to 11 July, directed by Fred Abrahamse. This witty, bittersweet comedy unfolds over one Swedish summer weekend, as tangled affairs reveal that almost nobody is with quite the right person. With its waltz-filled score and the poignant ‘Send in the Clowns’, it offers audiences a second chance to see a production they embraced.
Cape Town Opera’s international journey continues with Porgy and Bess at the Grange Festival in Hampshire in July. Following its hugely successful 2026 European tour with the Chineke! Orchestra, CTO takes Gershwin’s great American folk opera to one of the UK’s leading opera festivals. With ‘Summertime’, a hurricane and some of the greatest ensemble writing in American music, Porgy and Bess remains a work of extraordinary musical and dramatic power.
From 24 to 29 August, Opera for All brings Rigoletto to the Joseph Stone Auditorium in an accessible format. Performed with piano accompaniment and with tickets priced at just R80, this condensed production is ideal for families, schools, community groups and seniors.
From 19 to 31 October, Cape Town Opera presents Mozart’s Così fan tutti at Artscape, directed the award-winning Australian director Greg Aldridge and conducted by CTO’s Jan Hugo. Two soldiers wager that their fiancées could never be unfaithful, disguise themselves and set out to prove it. Beneath the comedy, Mozart’s score explores love, loyalty and deception, including the exquisite trio ‘Soave sia il vento’ and the notoriously difficult ‘Come Scolglio’. Elegant, funny and unexpectedly unsettling, Così fan tutte remains one of Mozart’s most fascinating theatrical creations.
As the year draws to a close, Cape Town Opera and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra return to St George’s Cathedral from 8 to 10 December for O Holy Night, a much-loved fixture of Cape Town’s festive calendar. Featuring CTO’s House Soloists, Judith Neilson Young Artists, Vocal Ensemble, Children’s Chorus, Foundation Studio and St George’s Cathedral Choir, the 65-minute Christmas concert fills the cathedral with carols, voices, organ and orchestra.
Cape Town Opera is one of South Africa’s largest full-time performing arts institutions and the only continuously active opera company on the African continent. For more than 25 years, the company has championed South African vocal talent at home and internationally, while nurturing the next generation through its Foundation Studio, Judith Neilson Young Artist Programme and education initiatives. Its programmes span opera, musical theatre, concerts, community performances and work for audiences of all ages, with a commitment to making world-class music and theatre accessible to as many people as possible.
From grand opera to musical theatre, intimate community performances to international stages, Cape Town Opera’s 2027 season celebrates the art form in all its richness, scale and possibility and, above all, invites everyone to be part of it. Find out more atwww.capetownopera.co.za