Thandolwethu (Thando) Mamba, Frost School of Music’s Artist Diploma in Vocal Performance recent graduate, is the first to admit that his upcoming performance in Anthony Davis’s exceptional and influential opera, “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” at the Metropolitan Opera—an opera house that has engaged many of the world’s most influential artists—is a dream come true.
Since the summer of 2012 in Swaziland, a landlocked country in Southern Africa, renamed Eswatini in 2018, Mamba has been taking bold steps, significantly increasing his chances of having a rich and purposeful life.
“I thought I was supposed to be a doctor,” he says. “But looking back now, I realize that was equal parts my family’s expectations and my own internal conflict. The deaths of my mom and both of my siblings affected me greatly. I felt a responsibility to practice medicine to help my country’s health care system, which is not very good.”
While still in high school, encouraged by his school’s conductor Nkosingiphile Lubisi, Mamba entered the solo category of Swazi Bank’s Choral Music Competition. “I sang my first solo, and it was my first time standing on stage in front of people,” he says. Mamba was academically gifted and wasn’t much of an athlete. But, he loved music. “My grandmother, who brought me up after my mom died, loved music too, and we sang together at home and in church.”
After being ranked the second-best student in Eswatini in high school, Mamba applied for and received a UWC scholarship, including a full ride to study at a new college in Dilijan, Armenia. At 18, he had no expectations except feeling grateful to fly on a plane for the first time and explore the world.
That year, Mamba saw his first opera at the Armenian National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Yerevan, Armenia, and the beautiful music captured his heart. To date, Il Trovatore by Giuseppe Verdi is one of his favorite operas, which he at the time confused with La Traviata by the same composer. Interestingly, Mamba is presently performing the role of Baron Duophol in La Traviata at Opera Wilmington in North Carolina.
In 2016, Mamba was accepted to Duke University in North Carolina as a pre-med student and a Mastercard Foundation Scholar. The thought never crossed his mind to change his career path. Still, he inquired about the Liberal Arts offerings. “I told myself, just one semester, I'll take voice, piano, and Intro to Music Theory. But then, I just got hooked for life. The music bug bit me hard.”
His voice teacher, Susan Dunn, a Grammy Award-winning American soprano who has performed in many of the world's finest opera houses, concert halls, and theaters in operas, oratorios, and concert performances, sat him down one day during a lesson. She asked him, “What’s your major?” Mamba remembers answering, “Biochemistry.” She looked at him and said, “If there’s any part of you that considers music your true passion, I think you should explore it because you have what it takes to make a career as a singer.”
Mamba struggled with this decision for months. “I felt stuck between two worlds, unable to apply myself fully to either one. I was confused and could feel myself getting numb under the overwhelming load of two very demanding academic paths at a rigorous institution like Duke.”
In the summer of his junior year, Mamba decided to go to Italy through the Si parla, si canta summer opera program. That’s where he met Professor Kim Josephson, one of opera’s most versatile baritones and regular guest of leading opera houses, who was teaching at the University of Oklahoma at the time. By the end of the program, Mamba decided to apply to the University of Oklahoma, where he got an invitation to come audition for the Benton Schmidt Competition, in which all prospective graduate school students, must compete. Mamba won the competition and also received a $10,000 scholarship prize.
“I was so happy,” says Mamba. “I would be working with Professor Kim!” The next day, Josephson told him he was moving to Miami to work at Frost School of Music. “If you still would like to study with me, no pressure at all, you can apply for an audition there,” Josephson told Mamba.
Playing the role of Figaro in Frost Opera Theater production of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.
It was February. The December deadline had passed. Mamba told Josephson, “I want to study with you.” So, together they wrote an email to Frost, which allowed Mamba to audition, and shortly after, got accepted. “And that’s how I ended up in Miami at this amazing institution,” he says.
In September, Mamba will start rehearsals for “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X," slated to run during the 2023-24 season. After the show ends in December, Mamba plans to take a trip home. “I have been home for Christmas only once in the last ten years. So, it will be good to be home,” says Mamba, whose thoughts return to The Met. “I can’t believe I will be performing there this early in my career. To be part of the storytelling of this man's life, and not only as the heroic visionary that we all know him for but as a man, as a person; it’s incredible,” he says.
For Mamba, it reaffirms the idea that dreams do come true. “Sometimes the dreams that come true are the ones that we weren't even capable of having. I'm very grateful for all the unique opportunities that are opening up. With music, I’ve discovered a vehicle to heal people still but in a different way and on a much larger scale,” he says.
Mamba is passionate about education and empowering young people to dream beyond their circumstances. When he listens to music, he feels the impact of healing. “Music doesn't function traditional Western medicine regarding the body as a physical mechanism. It’s emotional, it's mental, and it's spiritual,” he says.
“I feel a great privilege to share this with my country, whose possibilities are so limited. I escaped poverty, and it has been liberating to visualize a life beyond that and to give hope to people that come from underprivileged backgrounds. I’m immensely grateful to the people who have allowed to keep pursuing my dream at a high level,” he concludes.
