Durban - When the English squad lines up for their first rugby Test this season against the Springboks at Ellis Park next Saturday, a Durban singer will lead them singing God Save the Queen.
Empangeni-born and Pietermaritzburg-educated actress Haylea Heyns knows the British national anthem, having last year sung it and Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika at the opening of the Royal Agricultural Show.
“But I’ll be singing only the first verse at the rugby, in the classical style.”
She trained in the classical style, especially after Helen Vermaak, her music teacher at Girls’ High in Pietermaritzburg, identified her classical voice talent.
Since then Heyns, who has degrees in media and marketing as well as music from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, has pursued a career in classical singing and acting.
RUGBY SONGBIRD: Durban-based actress Haylea Heyns will sing God Save the Queen ahead of England and the Springbok’s first Test at Ellis Park in Johannesburg next Saturday. Video: Duncan Guy
Her most recent epic was an Asia and South Africa tour with The Sound of Music as Baroness Schraeder, fiancée of the widowed Captain von Trapp, who eventually went off with the governess, Maria.
“I was getting dumped every night,” Heyns joked.
SRI LANKA SPECTACLE: Haylea Heyns on stage with local children in the recent performance of The Sound of Music, the first Broadway theatre production to be staged in Sri Lanka. Picture: Sagara Lakmal De Mel
Even having performed from the Philippines to Sri Lanka and China to Singapore, Heyns has not yet set foot in Britain.
However, she’s been in very much of a royal, English mood since watching the recent royal wedding.
The dress she will wear at Ellis Park was inspired by the event and is designed by Durban designer Carol Clark.
While Heyns has dreams of performing in the West End, she was recently part of history in the making in Sri Lanka as part of the cast of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Ian production of The Sound of Music, which performed the first Broadway theatre production to be staged in the country. Like the performances in other countries, local children were used to play the parts of the Von Trapp children.
At home in Durban, Heyns and her husband, Rogan, often watch the Sharks at Kings Park.
“And last year I performed at the Sharks Ladies’ Breakfast in a show, Beauty and the Beast,” she said.
What team will she support at Ellis Park next Saturday?
“The Springboks, of course,” said Heyns whose KwaZulu-Natal roots are so deep she was the third generation of her family to attend her high school.