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Chief Hijangua - Namibia's first opera
World premiere
National Theatre Windhoek, Namibia
September 2022
European premiere
House of Broadcasting in Berlin
September 2023
What happens next?
The great strength of this project is the international team that continually challenges and questions artistic collaboration. For this reason, we are very pleased that the composer Eslon Hindundu from Namibia is now working on a chamber version of the opera, which is being developed for 4 soloists and a chamber orchestra.
The chamber version is primarily about the inner psychology of the main characters from Namibia and Germany against the backdrop of colonial history. This creates something completely new, as this time we are not creating a historical and real space, but are going straight into the unspoken and the world of ideas.
In an intensive artist in residence, a collective of up to 8 artists from Namibia and Germany will create a completely new creative concept that we will bring to the stage through effective theater craftsmanship.
Eslon Hindundu's great dream of reaching many people in Namibia and Germany through his music and bringing the two countries closer together is thus entering a new round.
The work "Chief Hijangua" explores the shared history between Namibia and Germany during the colonial period in a multilingual and intercultural exchange: The opera is sung in Otjiherero - one of the languages of Namibia - and in German.
The entire project began with a friendship at the Immling Opera Festival 2019 in Bad Endorf, when Kim Mira Meyer from Munich and Eslon Hindundu from Windhoek, Namibia - she assistant director, he choirmaster and singer - met for the first time.
Together - he as composer and she as director - they wanted to work on the first Namibian-German opera that also tells the colonial history. Countless Zoom calls, visits to Windhoek, return visits to Munich followed, and all during the Corona period.
After three years of preparation, the opera Chief Hijangua celebrated its world premiere in Windhoek in autumn 2022 with over 100 participants. All departments, from set design to directing to production, worked across borders in Namibian-German teams to create the creative concept for the production, an artist collective in the truest sense, with cultural exchange and the integration of the different Namibian cultures being elementary components of the artistic process.
In summer 2023, the work celebrated its European premiere at the Haus des Rundfunks in cooperation with the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, sponsored by the LOTTO Foundation Berlin and supported by the Siemens Arts Program.
