Remembering to forget the Eoan Group – the legacy of an opera company from the apartheid era

Abstract

The Eoan Group is a cultural and welfare organisation in the so-called coloured community of Cape Town. Started in 1933 in District Six, it enjoyed an illustrious history that included the performance of many Italian operas as well as choral works, plays and ballets from the classical canon. However, the group's acceptance of government funding during the apartheid era resulted in a political compromise that cost them their reputation and, in time, robbed them of their art. At the height of apartheid, the group was rejected by the coloured community on political grounds and their achievements vanished from public memory in subsequent years. This article presents a broad overview of the group's cultural endeavours, especially in the field of opera, as well as a discussion of the disappearance of their legacy from the public domain. It furthermore introduces the notion of coloured identity as this seems essential to an understanding of the internal workings of this group and its trajectory: from initial acceptance in the 1940s and 1950s to rejection by their own community from the 1970s to the present day. The article discusses the theory of coloured identity as expounded by Mohamed Adhikari and attempts an integration of his ideas with aspects of the Eoan Group's history.

Keywords:

• South African opera
• Eoan Group
• coloured identity

Notes

1. Davids is currently Professor in Singing at the College of Music at UCT and has coached many star singers of the local operatic scene, among them Pretty Yende.

2. This occasion was attended by former and current Eoan members, dignitaries and staff of the university as well as a number of people who were involved with the group over the years.

3. http://www.eoangroup.co.za/index.html, accessed 27 February 2008. The group's website has since been removed and been replaced with a Facebook page, which contains no information on the history of the group at all.

4. See, for instance, the introduction written by the literary stalwart N.P. van Wyk Louw.

5. Gunther Pulvermacher and Walter Swanson.

6. This issue is discussed in publications by Carol-Ann Muller, Sylvia Bruinders and Marie Jorritsma.

7. See, for instance, the 70-page bibliography compiled by Allegra Louw from the University of Cape Town.

8. Glissant wrote predominantly in French, although two of his publications have been translated to English, Poetics of Relation (1997) and Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays (1989). Denis-Constant Martin's research is based heavily on Glissant's work on creolisation.