Conductorless Opera Sitting down before Nigerian opera as sampled at
the Commonwealth Arts Festival, white legisseurs sighed admiringly. Here was something Europe simply cannot do. The sample was Oba- Koso ('The King Does Not Hang'). In this work, a medieval black emperor is so grieved by frac- tious generals and nagging politicians that he strangles himself, posts straight to heaven, and watches thence over his people with occasional tenor harangues and dread peals of thunder. Technically the score is simple. In the Scala pit, no seventy-piece orchestra: instead, four or five virtuoso drummers sit in the OP wing with exotic drums. One of the drums has a graduated fringe of bells. There is no vocal part-writing: nothing but simple though telling tunes for soloists or unison groups. The tune-flavour mingles jungle with plainchant.
But the point is that the drumming and the singing go like clockwork, interlocking flaw- lessly with brilliant mime, comic face-play, cut- and-thrust dialogue, and sharp bursts of stylised dancing—all without a conductor. In our own theatres such ensemble feats are unheard of. Nor do we have a Duro Ladipo, the man who wrote the opera, produced it, directed it, and plays the main part like an angel.
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