Resources

André, Naomi. 2016. ‘Carmen in Africa: French Legacies and Global Citizenship’. The Opera Quarterly 32(1), 54-76.

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ABSTRACT

This study explores the mediation of socio-political and life realities, and the performance of Nelson Mandela’s masculinities in the opera Mandela trilogy, and what that says about the function and nature of contemporary opera in the current socio-political contexts in South Africa. Mandela trilogy is a three-act opera in which events that unfolded in Nelson Mandela’s life are portrayed, from the time he went to the traditional initiation school to his speech after his release from prison in 1990. Acts 1 and 3 were composed by Péter Louis van Dijk and Act 2 by Mike Campbell, and the libretto was written by Michael Williams. The style of the original music in Act 1 is derived from AmaXhosa traditional songs, but it also includes arrangements of existing traditional IsiXhosa songs. The music of Act 2 is predominantly in a jazz style, and Act 3 is in a contemporary classical operatic style.