Paulina Constance Malefane

Paulina Malefane is a Cape Town born opera singer, who studied at UCT’s College of Music with Virginia Davids.

Later she became co-founder and co-Music Director of Isango Ensemble and has worked with members of the company since 2000. She was also an advocate for The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

She saw world-wide success playing the role of Carmen, both on stage and in the Golden Bear-winning feature film U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, for which she won a Golden Thumb from Roger Ebert. She was awarded the Best Actress Award at the South African Film & Television Awards for the film Son of Man. In 2006 she made her Proms debut at London's Albert Hall with the songs of Kurt Weill. In the same year, she sang the role of Bess in Porgy and Bess at both Umea and Malmo in Sweden. In 2008, she was invited to give a series of master classes to the theatre and music students at UCLA. In 2009, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, she sang a series of concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic, which were broadcast on German television. 2012 saw Paulina playing the role of Venus in Isango's Venus & Adonis, which opened the Globe-to-Globe season at Shakespeare's Globe in London. Following its success, she and the production returned to the Globe in May 2013. In the same year she also played Noah in Unogumbe, an adaptation of Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde and in 2015, the role of Zoleka in Breathe – Umphefumlo an adaptation of Puccini’s La Boheme. On Isango’s USA Tour in 2015, she once again played Carmen and sang Titania in the new adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 2016 Paulina created and played the roles of Yindy and Sadicya in A Man of Good Hope, based on Jonny Steinberg’s book of the same name, at London’s Young Vic and New York’s BAM. Paulina performed with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra again in 2017 in The Cunning Little Vixen (conducted by Sir Simon Rattle), semi-staged by Peter Sellars and she reprised her role in June/July 2019 when the piece was presented by the London Symphony Orchestra; for this performance Paulina has been nominated for a 2022 Grammy Award.

In 2019 Paulina was appointed as a lecturer in vocal studies at the University of Cape Town’s College of Music.

During November of 2020 Paulina reprised her role as Yindy in Isango Ensemble’s A Man of Good Hope at the National Theatre of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain.