Enoch, Prophet of God

Enoch, Prophet of God is an opera composed by Roelof Temmingh (1946–2012) and Lungile Jacobs, with a libretto by Michael Williams.

The original text

Relating the true events of the Bulhoek massacre in the Eastern Cape in 1921 when a lay priest, Enoch Mgijima, and his church followers, called the Israelites, were killed by police after they had supposedly illegally occupied a farm.

According to Muller, the first locally composed opera performed by an arts council.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1995: Presented by CAPAB Opera in the Nico Malan Theatre (24 January – 4 February), with Fikile Mvinjelwa singing the title role. Conducted by David John Scarr and directed by Michael Williams, with Abel Motsoadi, Marcus Desando, Sibongile Mngoma, Fikile Mvinjelwa, John Eager, Christina Farr, Gordon Christie, Blaise Koch, Ronald Theys, Lungile Jacobs. Designed by Nadya Cohen. Lighting by John T Baker.

Sources

Wayne Muller. 'How South Africans forged a path to making opera truly African'. The Conversation. 29 January 2019

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 Unpublished PhD thesis.

Hilde Roos. 2012. 'Indigenisation and history: how opera in South Africa became South African opera'. Acta Academica Supplementum. 2012(1).

Ivan Meredith. 2006. 'Opera in South Africa during the first democratic decade'. Unpublished Masters thesis. University of Cape Town.