VOA标准英语2009年-Rehearsals Begin for Australia's First Abo

（单词翻译）

By Phil Mercer
Sydney
21 September 2009

Rehearsals¹ are underway for Australia's first indigenous² opera. "Pecan Summer" tells the story of a historic Aboriginal³ protest in the late 1930s. Over the years Aboriginal performers have been drawn⁴ to rock music as well as reggae and hip⁵ hop⁶ but few have been attracted to opera.
 
"Pecan Summer" tells the story of a demonstration⁷ at the Cummeragunja Mission, which was part of a system to house and assimilate Aborigines.
 
Many indigenous people resented the missions and demanded their own land. Colonial administrators⁸ responded by setting up special reserves for Aborigines.
 
In 1939, a large group of indigenous Australians walked off the reserve at Cummeragunja in protest at their squalid living conditions and the treatment they endured at the hands of European settlers.
 
They had complained of shortages of food and of widespread disease.
 
The story is now being told through dramatic art.
 
Rehearsals have started under the guidance of Deborah Cheetham, who for the past decade has been Australia's only professional Aboriginal opera singer.
 
She says this type of creative expression is a perfect way to explain indigenous history.
 
"Opera, if you think about it, is just storytelling through music, drama and dance and singing, and we've been doing that for thousands of years as well so it made sense to me that to find other opera singers perhaps I'd have to create a vehicle for them and that's 'Pecan Summer,' said Cheetham."
 
Historians consider the Cummeragunja protest to be the first mass strike by Australia's Aborigines, which sparked a nationwide movement for basic rights.
 
"We must raise our expectations for indigenous people because if we raise our expectations we will change the outcomes," she said.
 
Indigenous communities suffer high rates of unemployment, imprisonment⁹ and ill-health. Aborigines have a life expectancy¹⁰ 17 years below that of most other Australians.
 
"Pecan Summer" is due to open in the southern city of Melbourne late next year.