[The Conversation Africa] Many people thought that classical opera in South Africa - regarded as a western, colonial art form that was the preserve of white people during apartheid - would die with democracy in 1994. Instead the opposite happened. Black singers emerged as the new stars and the format of opera began to be Africanised for new audiences. Critics mapped this transformation as Cape Town established itself as a hotbed of the new opera. One such critic was Wayne Muller, who became an academic and wrote a PhD on the view