CAPE Town Opera (CTO), currently playing to capacity audiences and rave reviews on its European tour of Porgy & Bess, now invites audiences to experience the world’s most famous love story through the lush, melodic brilliance of Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, opening at Artscape Theatre on 18 November 2026. Kamal Khan will conduct the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra while Marcus Desando will direct. Desando, a South African opera singer and arts administrator, has performed in more than 75 opera, musical theatre and concert productions internationally and directed more than 40, including Rigoletto for SABC2 and Così fan tutte.
From the electric spark of a first meeting to the devastating silence of the tomb, Gounod’s opera transforms Shakespeare’s enduring tragedy into a sweeping musical portrait of young love, passion and loss. With its soaring melodies, grand orchestral writing and intimate love duets, Roméo et Juliette captures both the intoxicating beauty of romance and the terrible consequences of an ancient feud.
Premiered in Paris in 1867, Gounod’s opera is based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, with a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. Rather than simply illustrating Shakespeare’s play, the operatic form places the emotional lives of its central characters at the heart of the drama. Gounod’s lyrical writing presents some of opera’s most celebrated love music, while the unfolding conflict between the Montagues and Capulets drives the lovers inexorably towards tragedy.
Cape Town Opera will bring together a distinguished ensemble of South African singers led by CTO House Soloists Brittany Smith as Juliette and Lukhanyo Moyake as Roméo. The cast also features House Soloists Nonhlanhla Yende as Gertrude and Conroy Scott as Capulet and includes Judith Neilson Young Artists Nica Reinke as Stéphano and Dumisa Masoka as Benvolio. Completing the stellar lineup is Msimelelo Mbali as Frère Laurent, Thandolwethu Longo as Tybalt and Riaan Hunter as Mercutio. Design is by Leopold Senekal.
The story begins at a masked ball, where Roméo Montague and Juliette Capulet meet and fall instantly in love, unaware that they belong to rival families. Their discovery of each other’s identities cannot extinguish their passion and with the help of Frère Laurent they secretly marry. But violence and circumstance soon intervene. A fatal confrontation, exile, a desperate plan and a tragic misunderstanding propel the young lovers towards their final reunion, in the tomb.
With its opulent theatrical world, heart-wrenching duets and music of extraordinary lyrical radiance, Cape Town Opera’s Roméo et Juliette promises an evening of spectacle and emotion, a celebration of love that is as beautiful as it is doomed.
PHOTO CREDIT: Nicholai Thomas
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