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The Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards has announced its special honours ahead of the main ceremony.
The 59th Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards ceremony is set to take place on 17 March at the Baxter Theatre Centre in Cape Town.
Professor Angelo Gobbato received this year's Lifetime Achievement Award for his "enormous impact on South African opera extended over many decades", according to a press release.
"As a singer, director, educator and mentor to exceptional local operatic talent, and as an administrator, he has set new standards and enabled those who have followed him to achieve world-class performance excellence," the release said.
Gobbato is also the former director of the UCT Opera School, having retired in 2009.
"It's a great honour and a great privilege to be recognised at this time of my life," Gobbato told News24.
"I was very fortunate at the time that the new government came that I was in the position [to] fulfil a dream long held of mine, which was to discover the young Black voices of South Africa that had been prevented from singing opera," he shared.
"I managed to get some funds and establish a choral training programme and a studio programme for the University of Cape Town," the professor continued.
"This allowed us to train some excellent voices and make them fit for international consumption. I feel very honoured being able to do that," he said.
"I sincerely hope that in the future, the powers that be will realise the job opportunities that this art form gives to the country by employing people in South Africa and training them for overseas consumption," he added.
