FROM KATUTURA TO BERLIN: ESLON HINDUNDU ON COMPOSING NAMIBIA’S FIRST OPERA

Martha Mukaiwa (private source)

Namibian-German colonial history in the form of European opera? This is exactly what happens in september 2023 on the stage of Haus des Rundfunks in Berlin, Germany: in a collective effort, the Momentbühne e.V. portrays the reality of Namibia in the early 20th century and proves that the genre of opera can do far more than just string together complicated coloraturas.

The Namibian journalist Martha Mukaiwa accompanied the process and reports on the development process, special encounters and the creation of 'Chief Hijangua'.

In September, composer  Eslon Hindundu will conduct ‘Chief Hijangua’, Namibia’s first opera, at Haus des Rundfunks in Berlin.

The opera, composed by Hindundu, written by Nikolaus Frei, directed by Kim Mira Meyer and co-directed by Michael Pulse, is the Namibian composer’s first. And the story of its creation is one that inspires in its  telling.

In the late 90’s, Eslon Hindundu is a young boy singing at St. John’s Apostolic  Faith Mission, his father’s church in the Windhoek township of Katutura. Translated from Hindundu’s native language Otjiherero, Katutura means “The place where people do not want to live”.

Katutura is a remnant of Namibia’s apartheid era; a lively though underserviced township established in 1961 after the forced relocation of the city’s black population under South African rule.

It is here where the composer - his childhood already rich with the music of the church’s choir and its celebrated brass band -  first hears an orchestra.

Seated next to his brother, Pasewaje, who at just 13 had rallied the church’s children to form a kids’ choir while teaching himself the snare drum, Hindundu watches grainy broadcasts of international orchestras on television every Sunday, filled with wonder and dreams of the future.

“My brother was the first child in the church to actually start playing the trumpet. Everything he did was so inspiring. Sadly, he passed away in 2005. It was the most painful thing but it was one of the events that really made me dive deeper into music,” says Hindundu.

“As a child, there were times, when my brother and I would just sit and imagine. Imagine if we could do that! Imagine having a huge group on stage! That’s actually how the dream started.”

The dream is one Hindundu fulfilled last September, drawing a full house to Windhoek’s National Theatre of Namibia. 

‘Chief Hijangua,’ a Namibian and German opera, sung in Otjiherero and German, tells the story of a heartbroken Namibian royal who leaves his home and wanders the desert. Thirsty and delirious, Hijangua is rescued by German settlers, specifically by a pastor’s daughter, and invited to their outpost. There, the prince learns the Germans’ religion and their ways before a tragic return to his village.

The opera premieres to ovation in the Namibian capital but the journey from Katutura to a national theatre stage was not an easy one.

After his brother passes away, young Hindundu’s desire to create music grows and is encouraged by a woman in his community who would gather the children for bible study.

“She was the first one who really recognised the talent in me. She would teach me music and how to keep a beat,” says Hindundu. “Soon she told me that there was a national choir where people could sing and travel. At the time, it was called the College of the Arts Youth Choir.”

Hindundu, who continued to sing and even conduct the choir in primary school,  joined the College of the Arts Youth Choir in high school.

“I would say that’s how my musical journey really started,” says Hindundu who began his choral career as a first tenor before travelling the world and winning numerous awards as a member of the national youth choir.

While Hindundu continued to progress as a chorister, a trip to America for the World Choir Games would prove fateful.

“During that time in America, we had the choice to either go to a mall or to an opera production,” says Hindundu who opted to follow his enduring fascination with orchestras.

“That was the first time I ever saw an opera. I was so struck by how everything came together. You had an orchestra that was there, you had people acting on stage and then they would sing,” Hindundu says.

“At the time, I was also new to the singing industry. So the way they would lie down and sing in the most uncomfortable positions but then the sound still came out was amazing to me. And I thought, you know what, why don’t I go into this?”

As most artists can attest, Hindundu’s lofty teenage ambition was met with concern from family and friends.

“Growing up in a black family, they don’t believe in music as a career. Parents, they want to protect,” says Hindundu. “So before America I was just doing it for the fun of it. But after I saw the opera, I realised I could actually make a living out of this. I was determined to do music.”

With the intention set, Hindundu had to face a reality where there were few opportunities for opera singing lessons or individual singing classes for a boy from Katutura.

“Regardless, I was very interested and I decided to write my first song.”

At 15, Hindundu composed a choral piece titled ‘Namibia’ and it was featured on the College of the Arts Youth Choir’s first album.

“This was during a time in Namibia when, in the choral world, it was quite vibrant. You got a lot of new Namibian composers who were coming up like Roger Nautoro and Engelhardt #Unaeb. These are the people who really inspired me from the Namibian side.”

Eslon Hindundu in his natural habitat: surrounded by musicians.

By 2013, Hindundu was conducting Ella Du Plessis High School choir and leading them in international choir competitions such as the ATKV Animato.

“Conducting is not a natural progression for a member of a choir but I was always interested in it,” Hindundu says  “I was quite blessed with the conductor Fanie Dorfling who would sometimes allow me to conduct the College of the Arts Youth Choir.”

“Fanie Dorfling allowed me to learn. As much as I was in his choir I would learn all the techniques that he was using and apply them to his choir , St. John’s Youth Choir and Massive Youth Choir.’

Hindundu founded Massive Youth Choir, a community based choir in Katutura, in 2014. He is also the musical director and founder of Windhoek’s Vox Vitae Singers who sing the chorus in ‘Chief Hijangua’.

“Massive had a lot of challenges trying to get and pay for the copyrights of music and that’s when I really started going into composing. I did not want to run into problems at international competitions so I would write my own music,” says Hindundu. “I remember the first song I wrote for a competition was a piece called ‘Peace’ which talks about the peace that you find in the forest or in the fields.”

At the 2014 World Youth Choir Games, as the national youth  choir toured Croatia and Sweden, Hindundu had the opportunity to work on the African section of the programme.

“We would have the Western and the African section so we’d work on the African programme and the Namibian programme. We’d take some folk songs from Namibia and from South Africa and we’d make a sort of storyline,” says Hindundu.

“I would say that’s where I started thinking of storylines and music.”

Still holding on to his dream of conducting a large orchestra and perhaps singing in an opera, Hindundu began his first singings lessons in 2015. That same year, the University of the Free State, an institution in South Africa, presented a music master class which Hindundu attended and a lecturer was struck by his vocal talent.

“In 2015, I got an opportunity to study in South Africa. I was not even qualified to go study at all. I wrote a test which I passed which was also very surprising to me.”

Under the tutelage of conductor and composer, Lance Phillip, Hindundu began his musical studies at the University of the Free State’s Odeion School of Music in Bloemfontein.

“Lance Phillip became my mentor till this day.  I studied voice and conducting and he was very hard on me,” says Hindundu who spent the next three years singing in The Odeion Choir, learning music, composition and studying the work of composers of the Baroque, Classical and Renaissance era.

“As part of my scholarship, I had to be part of The Odeion Choir and the music they were doing was more difficult than the music from my youth. What made it even more difficult was that they were mainly professionals who could sight-read on the go,” says Hindundu.

“So that first year was very difficult. The second year I fell completely in love with classical music, specifically with Renaissance and Baroque music,” says Hindundu who cites the music of Handel, Bach and Palestrina as some of his favourites.

In 2018, Hindundu took part in the World Youth Choir, an annual session of the best young choral singers from around the globe, which made him realise why Phillip had pushed him so hard.

“It was one of the most beautiful times of my life. We toured China and Inner Mongolia,” says Hindundu. “I realised that Mr. Phillip had been pushing me to prepare me for this world. I met a lot of publishing companies, a lot of iconic conductors from all over the world and I made good friends who I am still in touch with today”

Upon his return to Namibia, Hindundu’s dream of conducting a professional orchestra was approaching fast.

After an invitation to be assistant conductor of the Swakopmunder Musikwoche, Hindundu worked with visiting international conductor and musical director of Germany’s Immling Festival, Cornelia von Kerssenbrock. Hindundu was later invited to be an assistant conductor at Immling Festival in 2019.

“That year we performed Puccini’s ‘Turandot’ which is one of my favourites. We  also did ‘Die Fledermaus’ by Strauss and ‘Don Giovanni’ by Mozart. During the Immling Festival, the idea of writing the first Namibian opera began,” says Hindundu.

“It was my first time taking part from the very beginning of how an opera is staged and I thought: Wow, this is fascinating. From the costumes to the dancing to the acting to the singing.”

To aid in his learning, von Kerssenbrock would task Hindundu with marking scores for the orchestra.

“Just seeing her conduct and communicate with the orchestra inspired me so much. Every little movement that she did - from her eyes to her body language - the musicians just took it and they made it into the most amazing sound,” says Hindundu.

“I was so fascinated that I thought - why don’t I write an opera?”

Meanwhile, Hindundu had already met the person who would direct the very first Namibian opera. During the same festival, ‘Chief Hijangua’ director Kim Mira Meyer was working as assistant to the director on a production of ‘Turandot’ and she and Hindundu had become friends.

“We sat down and I told her I would love to do an opera. A year later she introduced me to her former lecturer, Nikolaus Frei who wrote ‘Chief Hijangua’s’ libretto,” says Hindundu.

“We planned that I’d go to Germany and work with Nikolaus Frei in 2020.”

But as the Covid-19 pandemic hit  - replete with travel bans, uncertainty and shuttered theatres - 202o was relegated to a planning phase. In the meantime, Hindundu wrote ‘Pasewaje’, a Namibian choir and orchestra work named for his late brother.

“That’s when I started getting in touch with sponsors like the National Arts Council of Namibia and Bank Windhoek who sponsored me for that event,” says Hindundu. “I wanted to make it big and bring in musicians we don’t have in Namibia but because of Covid, we couldn’t,” he says.

‘Pasewaje’, though not an opera, offered Hindundu some experience on how to organize an orchestra and look for funding while the idea of ‘Chief Hijangua’ simmered in the background.

“I knew I wanted to write an opera about someone getting lost in the desert, somebody who was sort of running away and at the end ends up going home,” says Hindundu.

“But later on, when I was thinking about the whole idea, I started doing some research and that’s when I begangetting into the whole history of Namibia,” Hindundu says.

“What interests me is that we know so little from before the genocide, before the encounter with the colonial,” he says, referring to the Herero and Nama Genocide of 1904 in then German South West Africa (now Namibia).

“The story of Maherero really inspired me,” says Hindundu.

Chief Samuel Maherero was the Paramount Chief of the Herero people in German South West Africa and a key leader in the movement against German rule, notably in the Battle of Waterberg.

“To be honest, in my research beyond what is in the history books, I never really got concrete information from the people I spoke to. I would read in-between the lines. Because one thing I also found out is that our parents, our elders are not willing to share much about this time,” says Hindundu.

“I wondered why and my conclusion is that when the genocide happened, it really destroyed the Herero people. So much that they did not want to share many of the experiences that they went through,” Hindundu says.

“So I told Nikolaus Frei about all of these stories of Maherero and the Nama chief Hendrik Witbooi and I remember discussing how we could actually change things and make it a very beautiful story,” says Hindundu. “I wanted to make it a typical opera where there’s tragedy but there’s also love.”

After Frei completed the libretto, Hindundu composed ‘Chief Hijangua’ from June – December of 2021.

“I finished it in December in Munich,” he says. “I remember sitting in a room, snow coming down, the most iconic view. An experience I’ll never forget.”

By 2021, as ‘Chief Hijangua’  began to take shape, the youth-driven Namibian opera caught the eye of the Siemens Arts Program.

“Siemens was interested in the concept of an African opera and a young cast. They have a programme that focuses on young artists and they did a documentary on ‘Chief Hijangua’” says Hindundu. 

Though Hindundu and Meyer had envisioned a large scale production, some of their anticipated funding fell through and they had to do their best with generous support from Siemens Arts Program and Bank Windhoek.

“As the money we got couldn’t cover our original idea, we went with a concert version of the opera, semi-staged where you can see the orchestra on stage and actors sing and act there too,’ says Hindundu.

“That’s how opera started but we updated the whole idea and it worked well for us. When the funding fell through, we had to come up with a new concept in two months and I think the result was quite amazing.”

Despite the setbacks of the pandemic and of funding, Hindundu was adamant ‘Chief Hijangua’ would be staged in 2022.

“There are so many composers who compose operas that have never been performed. It becomes like a museum piece,” Hindundu says.

 “For me, it was not only about the opera but also about developing the industry here because I know how much I struggled to just even get to conduct an orchestra.”

Hindundu also hoped to endear classical music to Namibians.

“Classical music has changed my life. If it was not for classical music, I would have been in the street. I don’t know how I would be. So the question has always been how do I bring this to the Namibian people? How will they relate?” says Hindundu.

“With this in mind, when I was thinking specifically about ‘Chief Hijangua’s’ music, I looked at how Namibians are exposed to classical music and it’s through film music and church,” he says.

“So I had to take film music, classical elements and African music and combine them. In the beginning of the opera, I use a well-known Namibian folk song. I don’t know if people noticed it but I used a song about Waterberg, ‘Ndundu Yomeva’ (Mountain of Water),” says Hindundu.

“I orchestrated it in way that it would be familiar with the local listener. So the music was not alien to the ear.”

Pushing back against the idea that classical music is for the elite or primarily for the mainly white audiences who typically attend classical music events in Windhoek, Hindundu composed ‘Chief Hijangua’ with all Namibians at heart.

As ‘Chief Hijangua’ was only staged for two shows in Namibia, it’s hard to tell whether most Namibians have been swayed but Hindundu’s quest to share his gifts, his inspiration, his history and his culture is a noble one.

“It was quite a challenging journey but, looking at it, I’m proud of it,” says Hindundu who is currently in production for ‘Chief Hijangua’s’ next iteration in Berlin which premieres on 15 September.

The Haus des Rundfunks version features a Namibian, German and South African cast and will be staged in cooperation with Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Siemens Arts Program with the support of Momentbühne, the Berlin Senate Chancellery and the Berlin Lottery Foundation. The opera will feature Namibia’s Vox Vitae choir and Berlin’s Cantus Domus choir. A children’s version of Namibia’s first opera will also be performed at Berlin’s Humboldt Forum.

“After performing ‘Chief Hijangua’ in Namibia, it took me almost a month to realise I had done it. To be honest, it still feels like a dream.” says Hindundu, thinking back to childhood Sundays spent watching orchestras with his late brother.  

“When I saw the orchestra in Germany, I got chills. This is a big honour and a dream come true. People just don’t get these kind of opportunities. Especially someone from Katutura,” he says.

“I hope that this opera in Berlin will be an introduction to something new and to new ways of approachingGermany and Namibia’s shared history and of working together,” Hindundu says.

“Music is the star of this whole thing but the staging, the design, the costumes…,” says Hindundu, pausing in unbridled excitement.

“I think everyone should prepare to be blown away.”

Text by: Martha Mukaiwa, 2023.