This Saturday, April 16, the Théâtre des Champs Elysées honors the lyrical voices of Africa. Through the great voices of the African continent gathered on stage, the “Women of Africa” association offers an exceptional evening for the benefit of young African lyrical artists around great pieces of opera and traditional African songs.
Among its greatest voices, the history of opera singing has many African-American singers of international stature: from the pioneer, the contralto Marian Anderson, the first black singer to sing at the Metropolitan Opera, Léontyne Price, Grace Bumbry, Jessye Norman , Barbara Hendricks or Shirley Verrett have interpreted the greatest arias on the greatest opera stages in the world. But what about the voices of Africa?
It is to give them their place that the association Women of Africa has launched “African Lyrics Opera” and presents this Saturday “Les Voix Lyriques d’Afrique” at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.
Its president Patricia Djomseu is the guest of VMDN, along with two of the artists who will be on stage on Saturday evening: the soprano of Cameroonian origin Elisabeth Moussous and mezzo Adriana Bignagni-Lesca who is from Gabon. She is the very recent winner of the 1st edition of the International Singing Competition “Les Grandes lyriques voix d’Afrique” organized last week at the Palais de la Porte Dorée in Paris.
Report : Amelie Beaucour slipped behind the scenes of the 1st edition of the International Singing Competition “The Great Lyrical Voices of Africa” to hand out her microphone to the participants half an hour from the start of the show, between stage fright and vocalizations.