To celebrate and spotlight some of the field’s top artists and emerging singers, OPERA America recently asked company leadership to nominate the singers and production artists who have caught their ears and eyes.

When he was growing up in Eswatini in Southern Africa, baritone Thandolwethu Mamba, whose first name means “our love,” didn’t know that opera could be a viable career path. Armed with good grades in pri­mary school, he decided to attend medical school after los­ing his mother and siblings.

It wasn’t to be. Mamba, who still recalls growing up singing with his grandmother, found perform­ing so moving that he chose to pursue singing instead, later earn­ing an artist diploma and master’s degree from the Frost School of Music in Miami. “Thando has a powerful and beautiful voice and absolutely delights on stage,” says Gabriel Preisser, general direc­tor of Opera Orlando. “He is also a pleasure to work with and brings great joy to his craft and to any production that is involved in.”

Mamba describes his debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 2023 in the ensemble of The Life and Times of Malcolm X (Anthony Davis, com­poser; Thulani Davis, librettist) as “a dream come true.” The baritone, who loves to cook when not on stage, is a part of the Washington National Opera’s 2025–2026 Cafritz Young Artists cohort, where he will perform in company productions of The Marriage of Figaro, The Crucible (Robert Ward, composer; libretto adapted from Arthur Miller’s play by Bernard Stambler, librettist), The Little Prince (Rachel Portman, composer; Nicholas Wright, librettist), and more.

“He was a delight, both on and off the stage,” says Anh Le, direc­tor of marketing and PR at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, where Mamba sang as a young art­ist in 2022 and 2023. “He is fun, kind, and hardworking, and it would be lovely to see him recog­nized for those traits,” Le adds.

Thandolwethu Mamba is one of four In the Wings profiles featured in our summer 2025 magazine. You can read all the profiles here.

In the Wings is underwritten by generous support from Laurie E. Nelson Randlett, trustee of the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera.