"We would put in a drum or enhance the music, to make it better or to make it more lively or to make it be now – sound like we are in the present, not like we are in the 1800s. "We love Puccini! We love Mozart! We respect them! And we would never do anything to jeopardise Puccini as a composer," she said. One of the challenges the group faces is that traditional opera lovers do not take kindly to their reinterpretation of Western classics. They range from singers and actors to church choir members. The group draws most of its members from South African townships. Isango takes Giacomo Puccini’s opera La Bohème, translates the title into Xhosa as Abanxaxhi, which means “a beatnik,” and sets the opera in a township setting. One of the principle roles dies of TB, so when we looked at it, we found that there are still a lot of people in South Africa, Africa and around the world who are still dying of TB.” Pauline Malefane, an actress and one of the group directors, said "We look at the story and how South Africans would relate to it-for instance, what we just did now, La Bohème, is an opera by Puccini. The three classics they performed were Aesop’s Fables, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, La Bohème-all of which were given a South African twist. And then we went to Berlin, Germany – where we did The Magic Flute." We use, sometimes, things that are strictly South African, but they get them – they get the stories. We went to Hackney where we were tackling three shows at once. They had not seen that much music in a long time. "They were surprised to see what we had done. Thet group's musical director Mandisi Dyantyis said in London, the ensemble played for the Shakespeare Festival: They recently flew back to the city following good reviews of their theater performances at The Globe and Hackney Empire Auditorium in London, as well as the Admiral’s Palace in Berlin. Their work focuses on re-imagining classics from Western theater and re-contextualizing them in a South African township setting. Isango Ensemble is a theatre group that does musicals, plays and opera with an added African twist.
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