09 Mar Nigerian Helen Parker-Jayne Isisbor Spawned the First Pidgin Opera.
Nigerian Helen Parker-Jayne Isisbor’s quest to champion her often-derided west African vernacular has spawned the first pidgin opera.
This is opera, but not as you know it: it is the world’s first opera in pidgin, the language spoken by some 50 million people in West Africa’s most populous nation of Nigeria, alongside variants in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and it debuted in London last week.
Song Queen: A Pidgin Opera came about after Nigerian-born Helen Parker-Jayne Isibor, also known by her artistic name, The Venus Bushfires, watched a recital of Richard Wagner’s opera, Parsifal. That began a four-year labour of love aimed at convincing audiences that an artform most closely associated with classical Romance languages could blend with a vernacular often seen as lacking prestige.
“I went to the opera wearing my ankara,” Isibor explained, indicating her jewel-bright Nigerian clothes, which caused a stir among the black-tie wearing opera regulars. “And I thought, actually, I’m going to pidgin this entire situation up!”
The show is the latest in a renewed burst of Afrofuturism – where conceptual artists reimagine black-related themes. The organisers hope its debut at the world’s largest festival of new opera, which opened in London last week, will eventually lead them to Nigeria and beyond.
Also see: THE VENUS BUSHFIRES: EXPLAINS WHY SHE LIKES TO TICK THE “OTHER” BOX
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