Compelling inside views of what characterises opera and music theatre in African and African diasporic contexts. Music is often cited as a central artistic mode in African theatre and performance practices. However, little attention has been paid to music theatre on the continent in general, and to opera in particular, with the exceptions ofa few noted genres, such as Concert Party or the Yoruba "folk opera" of the 1960s, and the emerging research on opera culture in South Africa. This volume of African Theatre highlights the diversity across the continent from a variety of perspectives - including those of genre, media, and historiography. Above all, it raises questions and encourages debate: What does "opera" mean in African and African diasporic contexts? What are its practices and legacies - colonial, postcolonial and decolonial; what is its relation to the intersectionalities of race and class? How do opera and music theatre reflect, change or obscure social, political and economic realities? How are they connected to educational and cultural institutions, and non-profit organisations? And why is opera contradictorily, at various times, perceived as both "grand" and "elitist, "folk" and "quotidian", "Eurocentric" and "indigenous"? Contributors also address aesthetic transformation processes, the porousness of genre boundaries and the role of space and place, with examples ranging from Egypt to South Africa, from Uganda to West Africa and the USA. The playscript in this volume is We Take Care of Our Own by Zainabu Jallo GUEST EDITORS: Christine Matzke, Lena van der Hoven, Christopher Odhiambo & Hilde Roos Series Editors: Yvette Hutchison, Reader, Department of Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Warwick; Chukwuma Okoye, Reader in African Theatre & Performance University of Ibadan; Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre, University of Leeds.

About the Author
CHRISTINE MATZKE, Lecturer in African Literatures and Cultures, Humboldt-University, Berlin. Lena van der Hoven is Assistant Professor for Music Studies at the University of Bayreuth, and Research Fellow of Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation at Stellenbosch University. In 2018 she received the Scientific Award of the University of Bayreuth for her research on South African Opera. Christopher Joseph Odhiambo is a Professor of literature, theatre, creative writing and film at the Department of Literature, Theatre and Film Studies at Moi University. CHRISTINE MATZKE, Lecturer in African Literatures and Cultures, Humboldt-University, Berlin. Hilde Roos is the General Manager of Africa Open Institute for Music, Rese In 2013 she co-edited the oral history book Eoan - Our Story and published her monograph The La Traviata Affair: Opera in the Age of Apartheid with University of California Press in 2018. Lena van der Hoven is Assistant Professor for Music Studies at the University of Bayreuth, and Research Fellow of Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation at Stellenbosch University. In 2018 she received the Scientific Award of the University of Bayreuth for her research on South African Opera. Hilde Roos is the General Manager of Africa Open Institute for Music, Rese In 2013 she co-edited the oral history book Eoan - Our Story and published her monograph The La Traviata Affair: Opera in the Age of Apartheid with University of California Press in 2018.

Reviews
[thought]-provoking and horizon-broadening. * HERRI *
Illuminating 'the diversity of opera and music theatre across a variety of African and African diasporic contexts', this volume rethinks the immediate Eurocentric implications of opera as a term and embraces a more wideranging conceptualization of the art form. -- Journal of African History



Book Information
ISBN 9781847012579
Author Christine Matzke
Format Hardback
Page Count 288
Imprint James Currey
Publisher James Currey