GRANDMA’S OPERA COMES HOME TO KENYA

Nyanga (Lyndie Shinyega) and her sister Okoko (Mary Gichu) in the opera "Nyanga: Runaway Grandmother'

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

 Opera was something Rhoda Achieng-Ondeng was destined to do from the time she was seven years old when her Scottish school teacher spotted her vocal talent and sent her straight on stage with a song that this professional soprano still recalls.

Rhoda also remembers the sweet songs that her maternal grandmother Nyanga would sing when, as a child, she’d sit at the ancient storyteller’s feet, listening as she told of how she had run away from home as a young girl, was ‘found’ by Canadian missionaries who turned her humble life upside down.

It’s the ‘runaway’ grandmother’s story that Rhoda first wrote down with a view to its one day becoming Kenya’s second indigenous opera. The first was ‘Ondieki the Fisherman’ composed by her former English teacher, Francis Chandler.

“It was Mr. Chandler that I sought out when I finally decided it was time for Nyanga’s story to become an opera,” says Rhoda who has been a professional opera singer since she left University of Oregon with two master’s degree in Music.

She spoke to BD just before re-staging excerpts of the full opera, ‘Nyanga: Runaway Grandmother’ last Thursday, November 26, in Lavington at her Baraka Opera Trust Performing Arts Centre which she built since returning to Kenya from Norway early this millennium.

“We were to perform another set of excerpts December 8th in Kisumu County at the Ciala Resort,” Rhoda says, adding she and her opera were invited by Kisumu County Governor Professor Anyang’ Nyong’o. “But sadly, the performance and the entire Festival was cancelled,” she adds.

Surprisingly, Rhoda chose not to take a major role in her opera, appearing gracefully at the outset and the end, singing Nyanga’s song. One reason for this is because she wanted to look after every aspect of the production, from the chamber orchestra and conductor (Levi Wataka) to the vocal training of scores of singers (by Ciru James). But she left all the other show details with Michael James who, like Rhoda, has been back and forth between Kenya and Europe for many years.

“Mike actually accompanied me on piano when I sang at Starehe Boys and I was schooling at Limuru Girls,” says Rhoda, who married Norwegian Ingvard Wilhelmsen and has lived abroad ever since. “But I try to come back to Kenya every year,” she adds.

“I’ve always wanted to return and introduce Kenyans to opera,” she says, knowing that opera probably seems alien, even elitist to many.

“But that is why I want to demystify it so people can see opera as a vehicle for sharing Kenyans’ stories.” In this case, she says Nyanga is in English mixed with bits of Dholuo and Kiswahili.

Having auditioned many Kenyans for the show, she’s found the vocal talents of young people tremendous ‘Every character was cast with an understudy,” she says, noting that her grandmother was played last Thursday by both Lyndie Shinyega and May Ombara (her understudy).

Serving as both opera producer and director, Rhoda has staged extracts of Nyanga twice before, once November 6th at her Centre and again November 8th when she involved award-winning writer Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor to help her lead a program to discuss “Music Meets Literature’.

“We always practice social distancing during our performances, but it’s also helpful that we have had them all outdoors,’ she adds.

Rhoda has previously kept a relatively low profile when she’s been back in Kenya. Yet she still gets recognized for the first-prize performances she gave during past Schools Drama Festivals. It was in 2014 when she set up the Baraka Opera Trust to begin to realize her dream of bringing opera home to Kenya.

Before it was cancelled, December 8 was to be a special occasion since ‘Nyanga’ was to be part of the larger Kusi Festival which would have embraced an array of artists from East and Central Africa.

“The Festival was created by President Paul Kagame [of Rwanda] who wanted to create an event where ideas from all over the region could be shared,” Rhoda says.

“Normally the festival moves from country to country every year and this is Kenya’s year.”

Rhoda hopes to take Nyanga around to other parts of the country on her mission to familiar Kenyans with opera. But that plan is on hold for now.

“Opera is costly and since we always pay our musicians, we are fund-raising, even now,” Rhoda admits.

‘We also want to illustrate high professional standards by our actions since that’s what we know Kenyan artists deserve.”