Singers on Safari

Extract

Who wanted to go to Bulawayo? Not I, for one. And if that sounds at once churlish and unenterprising I protest that the sound of the place—Bulawayo—did not conjure up a picture of a musical Mecca at the end of what would be a very long pilgrimage.

Where was it exactly? Taking out the atlas and turning to a page marked “Africa”, it was to be found above the Transvaal, alongside Mozambique, in Southern Rhodesia and rather small print. Thousands of miles away from London, England. And who was invited to go to Bulawayo? The Opera Company from the Royal Opera House. The Rhodesian Government, celebrating the centenary of Cecil Rhodes's birth with a large exhibition, had built a theatre there, and they requested the pleasure of a visit not only from the Opera, but they also invited the Hallé Orchestra, the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, and a Company of actors which included Sir John Gielgud. The Ballet and the Halle orchestra were the earliest visitors at the Exhibition, and stories of extreme cold, of discomfort caused by altitude, of the tiresome length of the journey, all began to filter back to England. Who wanted to go to Bulawayo?