Saintly sins

They say that the devil gets all the best tunes, and on the basis of this week’s opera-going it would be hard to disagree. Performances by Cape Town Opera and Opera Rara turned their attention on two historical icons: South Africa’s anti-apartheid campaigner and president Nelson Mandela, and ancient Assyria’s murderous and would-be incestuous queen regent Semiramis. No prizes for guessing who came out on top. When it comes to art, evil takes it nearly every time. Who wouldn’t choose The Rake’s Progress over The Pilgrim’s Progress, Don Giovanni over Don Ottavio, sex over sanctity?

For a good man, Nelson Mandela has inspired a lot of really, really bad art. Just think of the various biopics, the Dean Simon reimagining of the Last Supper with Mandela as a muscular Jesus, even Richard Stone’s iconic portrait — all soft-focus, pastel idealism. Where life is so vivid, so virtuous, it leaves art nowhere to go, a problem that the Mandela Trilogy in all its affirming, essentialising optimism fails to resolve.