■ Cape Town Opera will perform The Mandela Trilogy at the Artscape Opera House on Tuesday July 17 and Wednesday July 18. In three acts highlighting Madiba’s youth in Qunu, early adulthood in Sophiatown and incarceration on Robben Island, the work fuses Xhosa traditional, jazz and contemporary classical music. Composers Peter Louis van Dijk, Mike Campbell and librettist Michael Williams collaborated to musically identify and complement the different phases of Mandela’s life. Thato Machona, Musanete Sakupwanya and Aubrey Lodewyk, pictured, star as Mandela, with Philisa Sibeko and Siphamandla Yakupa sharing the role of the late Winnie Mandela. Fleur du Cap winner, Edith Plaatjies, makes her Cape Town Opera debut as Dolly. Tickets cost R130, R200 and R280. Book through Computicket.