EOAN Group

The EOAN Group is an arts organisation founded in Cape Town in 1933 under guidance of Helen Southern-Holt.

Usually spelled with capitals, it is also found the Eoan Group in some sources.

History

Origins

The EOAN Group was founded by Helen Southern-Holt in District Six in 1933. It functioned as a cultural and welfare organisation. The name EOAN derives from the Greek word ‘Eos’ which means ‘dawn’, referring to the enlightenment it strove to bring to individuals.

Initially Southern-Holt taught speech classes which soon expanded into literature classes followed by drama productions. The group had their central offices in the Isaac Ochberg Hall in District Six. In 1938, the Isaac Ochberg Hall was donated to EOAN by the bequest of Mr. Ochberg himself.

Fifteen branches were established throughout the Cape Peninsula by the mid-1950s, offering a wide range of activities that included ballet, folk dance, speech, drama, singing, painting and sewing. Lectures and talks on literature, arts, leadership and marriage guidance were also presented. From 1956 until the late 1970s EOAN featured an active amateur opera section responsible for numerous arts festivals, annual opera seasons and tours throughout South Africa (1960 and 1965) and the United Kingdom (1975).

Dance and Ballet

Already in the first decade of its existence the group started performing in public venues in Cape Town. In 1935, Southern-Holt was joined by her daughter, Maisie, a trained ballet dancer, who started dancing classes. Gifted dancers soon emerged from the EOAN Group and performed with the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra in the first Coloured Dance Display in 1937. The following year, a first group of dancers trained by EOAN took part in the Royal Academy of Dance Examination.

By 1940 a thousand children from fifteen EOAN branches took part in an open-air Physical Education Display which included dancing. From this year onwards, the ballet section annually performed with the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra.

In 1961, the EOAN Group also performed the first full-length indigenous ballet by a local composer for a South African ballet group - The Square by Stanley Glasser. It is a depiction of gang life in District Six and was choreographed by David Poole, with Johaar Mosaval in the principal role.

By the late 1970s some of EOAN’s dancers were used in ballet productions by the UCT Ballet School.

Song and Opera

In 1940, the brothers John and Dan Ulster started a choir for the group. At the invitation of Helen Southern-Holt, Joseph Salvatore Manca joined the Music Section as choral conductor in 1943. Manca developed the small choir into an amateur opera company. The majority of the EOAN singers were untrained and could not read music. They did not receive professional pay and rehearsals and performances took place in the evenings or over weekends.

The EOAN Group put on their first complete operetta, A Slave in Araby in the Cape Town City Hall in 1949. The EOAN Group presented their first full-scale opera in 1956. This production was followed by annual opera seasons, arts festivals and tours locally and abroad. Their repertoire included works such as Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto and La Traviata, Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Georges Bizet’s Carmen, Giacomo Puccini’s La Boheme as well as Il trovatore, Die Fledermaus, Madama Butterfly, L’elisir d’amore and Il barbiere di Siviglia. For all the opera productions, the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra was hired.

During 1961 EOAN’s music section started using premises on the third floor in Delta House in Bree Street, Cape Town as rehearsal and office space. In accordance with the Group Areas Act of 1957, EOAN, as a Coloured organization, had to apply for a permit to use this space in a White area. The permit was granted on 24 April 1961 and the EOAN Music section used these premises until 1969 when they moved to the Joseph Stone Auditorium in Athlone.

There was a close cooperation between the EOAN Group and the University of Cape Town Opera Company, with involvement form the university's Gregorio Fiasconaro, Stephen de Villiers (from the university’s Art Department) and Stanley Glasser.

In 1975, the EOAN Group performed its last opera , Verdi’s La traviata. After Manca’s resignation in 1977, the demise of the EOAN Opera Group was evident.

Bursaries and sponsorship

From 1955, EOAN began awarding bursaries to some of its dancers, singers and musicians to study music at the South African College of Music of the University of Cape Town. Among the recipients was the pianist Gordon Jephtas, who later played a pivotal role in training EOAN’s singers. The College of Music also offered voice training to EOAN through the services of one of their members of staff, Olga Magnoni, although it is not clear if she did this in her personal capacity or whether Eoan singers attended class at the College. EOAN also sponsored the ballet dancer Didi Sydow to study with the Royal Ballet School in London where she eventually made a career as a dancer.

The 1956 Arts Festival

The preparations for the festival took a full year. Already at this early stage some members had left the organization due to EOAN’s perceived ties with the government, of which the most tangible evidence was the funding provided by the Department of Coloured Affairs.

EOAN’s First Arts Festival commenced on 10 March 1956 in the Cape Town City Hall with a performance of Guiseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, sung in Italian. The other productions of this festival included a children’s version of The Mikado, the South African première of the musical comedy Zip Goes a Million, the oratorio Elijah, the play Johnny Belinda, and many other cultural activities such as Greek and classical ballet shows, a massed physical education display, flower exhibitions and a floral arrangement competition. The festival’s productions were spread over six months and came to a close in August 1956. The entire festival was held in the Cape Town City Hall, the only venue where EOAN was allowed to perform before mixed audiences, although the seats for Coloured and White audiences were allocated in separate sections within the hall. The middle and left sections were for Whites and the seats in the right section were for Coloureds.

Financially the festival was a success and, instead of the anticipated loss, the profit amounted to £994. However, not everyone in the Coloured community was enthusiastic about EOAN’s success. There was some widely publicized political resistance to EOAN’s operatic activities, particularly in response to the special "Europeans Only" performance of La Traviata on Tuesday 20th March. Among those invited to the performance were Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament.

The 1962 Arts Festival

Eoan’s Second Arts Festival was held in co-operation with the Peninsula Round Table. The festival productions were spread over several months, starting with opera in March and ending with a musical in November. The season included Madame Butterfly, La Traviata, La Bohème, Die Fledermaus, as well as a drama, a children’s operetta, Verdi’s Requiem and a new ballet, The Square, composed for Eoan by the South African composer Stanley Glasser and choreographed by David Poole.

EOAN Group Trust

In 1964, the EOAN Group Trust was launched as a separate entity to the Eoan Group with the aim to raise funds for EOAN’s activities. The trust consisted of important and seemingly financially well-to-do citizens who supported the group. Among the Trust members was the lawyer, theatre producer and future mayor of Cape Town, David Bloomberg and later also Dr. I.D. du Plessis of the Department of Coloured Affairs.

The EOAN Group Cultural Centre and the Joseph Stone Auditorium

After the destruction of District Six, the EOAN Group moved to their new premises in Athlone, The EOAN Group Cultural Centre, now known as the Joseph Stone Auditorium, named after its benefactor who donated R100 000 towards the building of the theatre. The EOAN Group Trust became the official owner of the Eoan Group Cultural Centre. The venue, comprising the Jospeh Stone Auditorium, various practise rooms, studios and offices, was inaugurated on 21 November 1969.

The move to Athlone also removed the EOAN Group from the hub of Cape Town’s cultural life. Due to a combination of political repression, the renovation of the City Hall where they had continued presenting their annual opera seasons and financial difficulties, producing opera became increasingly difficult for EOAN in the 1970s. When the City Hall was renovated, the new building could no longer accommodate opera performances, so performances were transferred to the Green and Sea Point City Hall.

International Festival of Youth Orchestras and Performing Arts

In 1975, the EOAN Group was invited to participate in the 1975 International Festival of Youth Orchestras and Performing Arts held in London and Aberdeen in August. Members who were chosen to travel abroad had to be younger than 26 years of age. Manca selected a choir comprising 26 singers under the age of 26, four guest singers (Ronald Theys, Gerald Samaai, Vera Gow and May Abrahamse), six dancers, six administrative staff which included Joseph Manca and his wife Minnie, Ismail Sydow and his wife Carmen, Eoan’s voice trainer Alessandro Rota and Eoan’s accompanist Regina Devereux.

During the Festival, EOAN performed various opera choruses from their existing repertoire with and without soloists. They were accompanied by the Young Person’s Symphony Orchestra from Scotland, which Manca conducted. The ballet participants attended classes in London and one person was even flown to Madrid for training in Spanish dance. Manca secured the services of Gordon Jephtas who joined the group in Aberdeen and London to train the choir. After the Festival the Group stayed in London for another twelve days during which they received training in acting, movement, dialogue and make-up at the London Opera Centre.

New leadership

In November 1977, at the age of 69, Joseph Manca resigned from EOAN on grounds of ill health. Ismail Sydow, EOAN's Chairman from 1963 to 1977, also resigned in March 1978 after having been with EOAN for 36 years. Carmen Sydow, who had been Wardrobe Mistress since the early 1950s, also left EOAN together with her husband.

EOAN continued to apply for annual grants from the Department of Coloured Affairs and received R 20 000 for the financial year 1977/8. However, after the departure of Manca, the activities of the Music Section and opera production ceased almost entirely.

Veronica Allan was appointed the new chairlady. The ballet dancer Dick Jaffer was appointed as new Wardrobe Master. Gordon Jephtas as hired as artistic director for the group in 1979, but he left within the year. During his short tenure as Artistic Director of EOAN, Jephtas appointed former EOAN ballet dancer Peter Voges as his assistant. After a year, at the end of 1980, Voges also resigned. Another EOAN stalwart, Alessandro Rota, long-time voice trainer and producer, also retired at this time.

In 1980, Roy Stoffels was head of the Drama Section.

Apartheid

The EOAN Group achieved great heights despite working under the constraints of Apartheid. The EOAN Group consisted of only coloured singers, because apartheid legislation forbade them to perform with white singers.

In 1957, the Group decided not to apply for funding as the government set the condition that, in order to receive the grant, EOAN was not allowed to perform to mixed audiences without a permit. Except for the continuation of the annual R 2000 grant from the Cape Town Municipality, the Group remained financially independent until 1966.

Intensifying Apartheid legislation since the 1960s affected the Group’s morale, although they continued to perform whenever they could before mixed audiences. Forced to accept financial support from the Coloured Affairs Department, their standing and support in the community suffered. Eventually Apartheid legislation saw the total prohibition of mixed audiences. Complying with these requirements, the EOAN Group applied for permits to perform in the City Hall for mixed audiences from 1966 and onwards. Despite these conditions, the successes of the Group were widely reflected in ticket sales and in the press.

Control over Eoan’s activities by The Department of Coloured Affairs gradually tightened. In reply to EOAN’s application for financial assistance for the 1970/1 financial year, the Administration of Coloured Affairs responded favourably, granting R 3,000, but requesting representation on the EOAN Executive Committee. During the AGM held On 8 December 1970 EOAN’s constitution was amended to allow for representation of the Department of Coloured Affairs on their Executive Committee.

In 1989, the Group decided to discontinue their annual application for subsidies from the government.

EOAN alumni

Since the late 1960s, a number of singers had left South Africa and pursued careers abroad. Joseph Gabriels was the first singer to leave EOAN. In 1971 he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in the role of Canio in Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci. He also sang for the English National Opera and Dusseldorf Opera, but later settled with his family in Milan, Italy.

Patricia van Graan, Abeeda Parker and Charles de Long left for the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia respectively.

In 1980, both Ronald Theys and Sidwill Hartman joined the opera choir of the Cape Performing Arts Board as the first Coloured singers for this (till then) completely White institution. In 1985, Gordon Jephtas worked on Broadway in New York. He accompanied Hartman, who at the time studied at the Julliard School of Music.

Recognition/Legacy

In 2004, Vera Gow received a National Order Award (the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver) from the South African government for her excellent contribution to the development of arts and culture in South Africa and sterling performance in the field of operatic music. In 2005, May Abrahamse and Johaar Mosaval each received a gold Molteno medal from the Tricentenary Foundation for their life contribution to arts and culture, and in 2007, May Abrahamse was awarded a Kanna from the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival for her life contribution to arts and culture.

In 2013, the film An Inconsolable Memory was released. This is Aryan Kaganof's 2013 documentary on The EOAN Group Book Project, an initiative to collect the forgotten history of a set of "coloured" performers from Cape Town's District Six who performed Italian opera to mixed audiences during and after apartheid.

Productions

1946: The Redeemer (a concert performed with organ and 100 singers)

1947: Sherwood (a children’s cantata performed with 500 singers and the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra), The Swan of Tuonela (ballet), conducted by Walter Swanson, with Johaar Mosaval in the lead role (14 October 1947)

1948: The Rose and the Laurel (a children’s operetta performed with singing and dancing by 500 participants)

1949: The Redeemer (a costumed performance performed by the adult choir and members of the drama section), A Slave in Araby

1950: Hong Kong (a light opera performed with the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra)

1951: The Maid of the Mountains

1953: Mendelssohn’s Elijah (a full-scale production with soloists, an adult choir of over 100 singers and organ accompaniment), The Gipsy Princess

1954: Magyar Melody (a musical comedy),

1956: La Traviata, Zip Goes a Million, The Mikado (performed by children), Elijah, Johnny Belinda

1958: Cavalleria rusticana, Rose Marie

1959: Rigoletto, Cavalleria rusticana, La traviata and Pastorale (ballet)

1960: La bohème, La traviata, Cavalleria rusticana and Rigoletto (the four operas were also taken on a first tour from June to September 1960 to Port Elizabeth in the Feather Market Hall, Durban in the Durban City Hall, and Johannesburg in the University Great Hall and the Alexander Theatre); The Pink Lemonade (ballet). In Port Elizabeth, Durban and Johannesburg mixed audiences were freely admitted to the venues.

1961: No productions

1962: Madame Butterfly, La Traviata, La Bohème, Die Fledermaus, Verdi’s Requiem, The Square (ballet)

1963: Behind the Yellow Door

1964: The EOAN choir sang in the JODS production of Show Boat (directed by Anthony Farmer) at the Alhambra Theatre, Cape Town, replacing the Capedium Choir of Johannesburg.

1965: La Traviata, La Bohème, Il trovatore and L’elisir d’amore (La traviata, Il trovatore, La bohème, L’elisir d’amore and Carmen were taken on a second tour to Johannesburg, Durban, East London and Port Elizabeth from June to August 1965).

1966: La traviata

1967: Oklahoma!, La traviata, Madame Butterfly, L’elisir d’amore

1968: South Pacific

1969: Il barbiere di Siviglia, La traviata, Il trovatore

1970: Carmen Jones

1971: I pagliacci, Cavalleria rusticana, Rigoletto, La traviata

1972: Rigoletto

1973: Il barbiere di Siviglia

1974: Il barbiere di Siviglia

1975: La traviata.

The costumes for all productions were made by EOAN’s own members. Carmen Sydow became Wardrobe Mistress from 1955 until her retirement in 1978.

Sources

http://www.domus.ac.za/content/view/44/5/

Tucker, 1997.

Wayne Muller. 2018. A reception history of opera in Cape Town: Tracing the development of a distinctly South African operatic aesthetic (1985–2015). Unpublished PhD thesis.

Sjoerd Alkema. 2012. "Conductors of the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra, 1914-1965: a historical perspective". University of Cape Town. Unpublished PhD thesis.

Hilde Roos. 2010. 'Opera Production in the Western Cape: Strategies in Search of Indigenisation'. Unpublished PhD thesis. Stellenbosch University.

Denis-Constant Martin. 2013. Sounding the Cape Music, Identity and Politics in South Africa. African Minds.

https://www.litnet.co.za/the-eoan-group-and-bringing-the-story-to-life/

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