Mandela Trilogy

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Mandela Trilogy - A Folk Opera on the Life of Nelson Mandela is a South African musical in three acts by Michael Williams (book, libretto and direction) and the composers Péter Louis van Dijk and Mike Campbell about the life and work of Nelson Mandela . The world premiere took place on June 17, 2010 under the title African Songbook. A Tribute to the Life of Nelson Mandela was held at the Artscape Opera House in Cape Town when South Africa hosted the first ever soccer World Cup on the African continent.

Content and structure

Each act of the trilogy is dedicated to a phase of Mandela's life and has its own musical theme. The title character is embodied by three different singers. The action begins with Mandela's prologue in his prison cell on Robben Island . He has been in prison for ten years and is considering an offer from the government: He may go back to his home village if he never speaks out politically again. He thinks longingly of his early life in the Transkei landscape, which is brought onto the stage in the first act. The actors traditionally wear South African fabrics. The actual language of the piece, English, alternates with isiXhosa . The youthful Mandela is initiated into the age-old traditions of his village community. The second act is about the attitude towards life of young black South Africans in the fifties. Mandela participates in the club and jazz scene in Johannesburg . He works as a lawyer in Sophiatown and experiences the eviction of the township on a government decision. His leadership role in the fight against apartheid is growing. The third act deals with the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre , the trial of Mandela and his imprisonment. He ends with his triumphant release from 27 years of political imprisonment and his speech from the balcony of the former town hall at the Grand Parade in Cape Town.

music

The work stylistically combines the traditional music of the Xhosa , jazz , blues and Broadway elements with the classical structure of a three-act opera . It is therefore also known as the “Volksoper”. Péter Louis van Dijk created the first and third acts in the style of an expressive postmodern opera. The third act begins with an oratorio composed by Allan Stephenson in a strictly atonal mode. Mike Campbell designed the second act as a lively musical. He lets the audience participate musically in the joie de vivre in the jazz clubs until the brutal evacuation orders are announced by a dull rumble. Michael Williams, author of the musical and director of Artscape Opera House, said of the idea of ​​the play: “You don't go to the theater to see a documentary. On the contrary. You want to be entertained. The soundtrack to Nelson Mandela's life is so entertaining. The rhythm, the wonderful melodies from his home village, the jazz and blues of the 1950s and the operatic silence of the prison era - it's made for a musical. "

Performances

The Mandela Trilogy was a great success when it premiered in Cape Town in 2010. The Cape Town Opera ensemble then toured South Africa and gave guest performances in several European cities as well as in Dubai and Hong Kong. In South Africa, the audience celebrated the play and its folk hero Mandela. All the equipment for the performance in Munich came from Cape Town.

Guest performances (selection)

Reviews

After two and a half hours of dance theater reminiscent of Nelson Mandela as a joyful freedom fighter, “the musical could now take on Mandela's political achievements,” commented the reviewer from Deutschlandfunk Kultur on the 2014 performance at the Deutsches Theater in Munich. “But it's not a documentary, it's a musical. That is why at the end we dance and sing. ”The review in Klassikinfo.de emphasized the performance of the Cape Town Opera choir in the Munich performance. "He is constantly on duty, a group of extraordinarily powerful African singers who also dance excellently and are also fully present as actors." His conclusion: "It has become a serious piece of entertainment and an entertaining piece with serious material. Because if freedom and the longing for it are sung extensively here, then this applies to all the singers personally, at least to their families. They had experienced white oppression and longed for the freedom that South Africa's African people gained through the work of the ANC and Nelson Mandela. Because Nelson Mandela existed, there is now this opera and this guest performance. "

The Guardian reviewer wrote of the 2016 guest performance at the Royal Festival Hall in London : “Michael Williams' libretto and direction successfully condense Mandela's story, but the music - the work of two composers - is a strange parody . Péter Louis van Dijk mixes western opera with South African folk influences, but would have benefited more from a cappella singing . The Johannesburg-based sequences of Mike Campbell thankfully hints of Township - Jive with, where the best song of the hit Pata Pata by Miriam Makeba was. In the final act, van Dijk introduced a more confident, dramatic style of opera and powerful choral singing during the sequence of the Rivonia Trial . ” The Independent noted that Mandela is also shown as“ Womanizer ” in act two, avoiding hagiography .

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Laszlo Molnar: Mandelas Erbe , Klassikinfo.de, June 5, 2014
  2. ↑ a b c d Sammy Khamis: Musical "Mandela Trilogy" A life full to the brim with conflicts and intrigues . Deutschlandfunk Kultur , June 5, 2014 (accessed March 18, 2018)
  3. ^ A b Michael Church: Mandela Trilogy, Cape Town Opera, Millennium Center, Cardiff , The Independent. June 21, 2012
  4. ↑ Robon Denselow: Mandela Trilogy review - compelling storytelling in a curious musical pastiche , The Guardian, September 1, 2016