Wales forges links with Cape Town

Wales Millennium Centre (WMC) and Cape Town Opera are to join forces in a three-year strategic partnership aimed at strengthening cultural links between Wales and South Africa. The company, South Africa’s largest performing arts organisation, performed f ‘Porgy and Bess’ as part of WMC’s fifth birthday celebrations in 2009, but the relationship between the two organisations stems from WMC’s association with its founding patron, Sir Donald Gordon, and the Donald Gordon Foundation in South Africa. The new partnership will include a debut performance of a new opera and an education project with schools in Cardiff Bay, which will also involve Welsh National Opera, one of the Centre’s resident organisations. There are also plans for staff exchanges between WMC and Cape Town Opera to share best practice and develop working relationships. The Centre’s vision is to establish a series of strategic partnerships with local, national and international organisations. It already has a five-year agreement with Galeri, Caernarfon and with the Mariinsky Opera.