MWS-Vortrag

Prof. Dr. Lena Van der Hoven South African opera and discourses of heritage and history

In September 2022 Hendrik Hofmeyrs opera Sara Baartman premiered in Cape Town with a controversial interpretation of her own agency in her life, though Sarah Baartmans exploitation as the “Hottentot Venus” in 19th century Europe has been widely scholarly discussed with respect to race, gender, slavery and colonialism (Pumla Dineo Gqola 2018, Yvette Abrahams 2000, David Johnson 2007). After the reclamation of her remains in 2002 her burial place became a national heritage site and then President Thabo Mbeki pointed out to the connections of the racists projects of enlightenment which informed white supremacy at the time. I will discuss how this newest South African opera composition takes part in those discources of South African heritage and history and how the opera production needs to be seen in a canon of new opera compositions, which since the democratization in 1994 significantly address historical and political figures of South Africa.

Lena van der Hoven is Professor for Music Theatre at the University of Bern since 2022 and has been Assistant Professor for Musicology at the University of Bayreuth since 2015. She received a PhD in Musicology from the Humboldt University of Berlin for a dissertation on the Politics of Musical Representation in Prussia from 1688 to 1797. She has been a member of the Young Scholars’ Program of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2016-2022). In 2018 she received the Scientific Award of the University of Bayreuth for her research on South African Opera. And she is a co-editor of the first edition of opera and music theatre in Africa (African Theatre 19). Her research interests include the diverse entanglements of opera and music theatre with politics and their function in societies. Her present focus lies in contemporary South African opera productions, with a special interest in the transformation of the genre in the socio-political context. She was the convener of several symposia, a conference and workshop with topics as ‘Music and Democracy’ (2015), the 450th anniversary of Staatskapelle Berlin (2015-2016), ‘South African Opera Productions after the Apartheid’ (2018 and 2022), and transformation processes of opera through new media and digitalisation (2019).

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