Opera in Africa

Christoph Schlingensief, the German director best known for his edgy stage revival of Wagner's opera Parsifal, is no stranger to outlandish ideas. But the 49-year-old may have just embarked on his most unusual quest yet: building an opera house in one of the poorest countries in the world.

On Monday, Schlingensief laid the keystone for an opera house in Burkina Faso, the landlocked African country where 90 percent of residents are dependent on subsistence farming.

"The people in Burkino Faso are extremely warm-hearted and welcoming," Schlingensief told the German radio station Deutschlandradio Kultur. "The children are very intelligent and musical. And although the country is very poor, it has a certain inner peace."

More than opera

The opera house, designed by Burkinabe architect Francis Kere, is to be erected in a village on the outskirts of the capital Ouagadougou. The village will also include a school for theater and music, performance spaces and a clinic.

Schlingensief, who is suffering from lung cancer, said his illness inspired his interest in the ambitious project.

"Africa is a place that has always meant a great deal to me, and that has given a great deal to me," he said. "I have the feeling that I can come here and give the pressures of Berlin and the life that I live there over to the world."

The building is part of the "African Opera Village," an aid project jointly funded by the Goethe Institute, Germany's cultural outreach organization, and the government-funded Federal Foundation for Culture.

'The big white man'

In a country where many residents don't have access to clean water, the decision to build an opera house might seem a bit unusual. But Schlingensief said the goal of the project was to give the people of Burkina Faso the resources to express their own culture.

"We want to help them without pointing the big finger of the white man from Europe," Schlingensief told the German press agency DPA.

The cultural minister of Burkina Faso, Filippe Savadogo, said that the "Opera village" will bring a great deal to Africa.

"The exchange between people is the future," Savadogo said, adding that the project would solidify the friendship between the German people and the people of Burkina Faso.

"With this project, we have finally entered the 21st century," said Savadogo.

smh/dpa
Editor: Andrew Bowen