PE Opera House to be cultural institution, with new name

The Port Elizabeth Opera House is to be officially declared a cultural institution, arts and culture minister Nathi Mthethwa announced on Wednesday .

Mthethwa, who was in Port Elizabeth as part of his national roadshow, said the decision was long overdue for the Opera House, which was established more than a century ago.

“In my attempts to find out why the Opera House has not been declared a cultural institution for all these years, there was no clear answer, which means something went wrong within our process of democracy,” he said.

“We have other institutions which perform the same things as the Opera House that were declared cultural institutions.” 

Mthethwa said the Opera House would be considered a priority when SA cultural institutions were merged in the near future.

“We have found that some of our 25 cultural institutions have similar functions so we are going to merge them and remain with six,” he said.

He also communicated the arts and culture office’s progress on issues that affect the sector at national and at provincial level to arts and culture stakeholders in the province.

Opera House GM Monde Ngonyama said the declaration would go a long way in addressing and minimising many of the complaints Eastern Cape artists have had for years.

“The declaration means we are provided with a one-stop shop for performing arts in the province and we will now be able to plan things years in advance while also being able to partner with other theatres nationally and internationally in bringing international productions to our stage and taking our own productions abroad,” Ngonyama said.

Once officially declared, the Opera House will be renamed.

“There are two changes that will happen, the first being that the structure of the PE Opera House will be renamed the Mandela Bay Theatre Complex.

“Second, the Eastern Cape Performing Arts Institution will be a legal entity to which the Mandela Bay Theatre Complex, the East London Guild Theatre and the province’s 17 arts centres will become subsidiaries,” he said.

Other issues raised included the proposed introduction of the Khoi and San languages in schools, sufficient recognition of the Uitenhage Massacre and equal distribution of funding among Gauteng, the Western Cape and marginalised provinces such as the Eastern Cape.

Mthethwa asked for a meeting to be arranged between him and the province’s cultural and creative sector to explore the proposed solutions further.