Five Operas Made in South Africa

21-27 November 2010. On occasion of the South African College of Music centenary, this concert brings together several South African composers and writers, who are members of the Cape Town Opera Studio as well as students from the UCT Opera School, directed by Marcus Desando and Geoffrey Hyland.

The musicians will present five new operas, lasting 20 minutes each. The operas are based on the life of Khoikhoi woman Saartjie Baartman, who lived at the beginning of 1800s and was exhibited at freak show attractions in 19th century Europe under the name Hottentot Venus; on the life of the English woman Lucy Lloyd, who worked with Wilhelm Bleek, a German linguist, on the codification of the 19th century archive of |xam and !kun texts; on the adventures of the Bushmen, the indigenous people of southern Africa; the history of xenophobia; the assassination in 1993 of Chris Hani, leader of the South African Communist party and the prison poetry of the South African writer and painter Breyten Breytenbach.

During the performances, which will be sung in Afrikaans, Xhosa, English and Zulu, an English text will be projected above the stage.