THE LA TRAVIATA AFFAIR, opera in the age of apartheid

271pp., illus., paperback, Oakland, 2018

A history of the Eoan Group, a Coloured cultural organization that performed opera in the Cape from 1933 until 1980. Hilde Roos also explores questions of complicity, compromise, and compliance; assimilation, appropriation, and race.

"This is an exciting and important project that helps uncover the larger picture of the arts in South Africa from a wide swath of the twentieth century. From 1933, with the colonial British occupation, through the rise of the National Party and the creation of apartheid, this study focuses on the history of one of the premier cultural agencies in South Africa, the Eoan Group." Naomi André, Associate Professor of Arts and Ideas in the Humanities Program, University of Michigan

Hilde Roos is the General Manager of Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation at Stellenbosch University.