Between the devil and Mario Lanza

By ASPASIA KARRAS

with Bongani Tembe

● It was Mario Lanza who did it.

“We had an LP at home in the 1980s and he was singing The Lord’s Prayer and I Walk with God. I was so moved, I’d never heard anything like that. My parents both worked for the church, but I remember thinking: ‘Who is this man singing with his heart? I thought I must get someone to train me to sing like this. I didn’t know classical music then. I didn’t know opera. I didn’t know any of that. The first time I saw an opera, I was 20 years old.”

Before Bongani Tembe ran most of the orchestras in South Africa (he heads up the Durban Philharmonic, the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra and the Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra) and before he found his voice as one of our most celebrated tenors, he was struck by the magic contained in a seven-inch record.

He is telling me the story of his very personal struggle and fight to get to the music that had entranced him at Kolonaki, the fabulous and super-stylish Greek restaurant on 4th Avenue in Parkhurst.

Dezemba vibes make me want to instantly transport myself to a Greek island. This is the next best thing. So I called the lunch venue.

Thankfully this discerning man seems pleased with my choice. We order some marvelous lamb chops, prawns wrapped in kataifi, honeyed feta, their version of Greek salad, and then have the wine conversation.

He lives in Durban and his local is Greek. So we are in familiar and happy territory. And we settle into an afternoon of storytelling.

“So when I finished high school, I started working. I was into science. I worked for a company called AECI. But I was always looking for someone to teach me opera.

“No university would take me in the early 1980s. They would say: ‘Sorry for the beautiful voice, but we don’t take black people.’ The universities I could attend did not teach music. But I was determined. I went from place to place, always rejected. Private teachers wouldn’t take you, saying it was because I couldn’t read music.”

He finally had a break at the Natal Playhouse, which years later, his wife leads. They could not help — again the sheet music issue — but perhaps he could try a teacher called Anthony Hannan. He was given an address and he walked — from 10am to 3pm. This was before taxis, Uber and Google maps. When he finally arrived, he was turned away at the intercom. They thought he was looking for a job. He almost gave up, but rang the doorbell again.

“I want to learn music from Anthony Hannan.”

That name was his lucky break. “But I insisted on paying for the lessons.”

That single-minded perseverance led to a what has been a glorious and fulfilling life in music.

What was driving him? “It was just this passion, this pursuit of excellence. And this need to express myself through music.”

I feel he should give invigorating talks about just this part of the story. I am pressed for space, but I can tell you that each chapter is inspiring.

He convinces his parents he needs to pursue music full-time despite a promising career path; he breaks racial barriers on the South African stage; he gets to Juilliard in New York together with his wife, the equally accomplished Linda Bukhosini, who is quite literally his partner on every step of the journey from the school choir and that first formal music lesson in Durban North, taking music theory exams with six-year-olds.

And being the first black South Africans at Juilliard, where they were in the same class with Viola Davis. Enough said.

But when democracy was born in South Africa they had another calling. Not from Mario Lanza, but from their belief in Madiba’s vision. They left flourishing international careers to give their hearts, souls and immense talent to South Africa to create a path to classical music for the youth.

He has been heading the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra for almost three decades. He was asked to step in to run the Johannesburg Philharmonic and brought it back into the black, and is now leading the Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra. I have heard rumblings about whether this orchestra is necessary given the troubles with funding.

“It is like the Springboks. You need a national team that brings the best people together. My argument is that we need orchestras in every province — like the provincial rugby teams. It is the only way to build talent in the country.”

He is immensely energetic and driven. “Juilliard does not only breed artists, it breeds leaders. In fact, the president of Juilliard wrote a book called The Artist as Citizen. I was not only built as an artist, of course, which is very important, but I think probably my leadership skills were honed in subtle but meaningful ways.”

One of his favourite tenor roles is Faust — it seems quite relevant in this present political moment.

“The devil says to Faust: ‘I can make you 25 again but you have to sell your soul to me.’ So that phrase sell your soul to the devil comes from that.

“And I suppose it’s a question that, at some stage, we all ask ourselves, right? It’ sa universal story. I don’t know a single person saying I sold my soul and it was great, let’s go again.”