A video of Mthetheleli Gxoyiya singing Opera in the perfect key at a filling station has turned the petrol pump attendant into a celebrity in South Africa.
His love for opera started when he joined a high school choir in the town.
“They prescribed opera music also. Then I said to myself‚ let me try this piece.”
He asked his teacher if he could attempt to sing opera‚ and the rest is history. Soon he was performing in the choir as a soloist. He ignored people who told him that he was wasting his time with opera and pursued his passion.
Gxoyiya had to give up his pursuit of a career in music when he failed his high school exams.
But while he is unlikely to grace the stage of an opera house in the immediate future, he does have an adoring audience in the small town of Cradock in South Africa’s semi-desert Karoo.
After the video below of him singing Handel’s Where’er You Walk came to light, Gxoyiya told Times Live that people come to his petrol station from far and wide to hear him sing – and presumably fill their tanks.
“My favourite artist is the one and only Pavarotti,” he says. “I love to sing compositions of Mozart also.
“I would love to continue with doing music. I want to be someone that will teach young people that opera is a career for the people‚” he said‚ adding that one day his dream may still come true.
Listen to Mthetheleli Gxoyiya sing Handel’s Where’er you walk:
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