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A leading British opera singer develops a work based on the music of her enslaved ancestors in Barbados as a way to explore complex historical events and highlight forms of resistance.
Peter Brathwaite and the Royal Opera House (ROH) will present Insurrection: A Work in Progress to audiences in March and solicit public feedback that will shape the next phase of the opera.
Baritone Brathwaite, who has sung at ROH, English National Opera, Opera North, English Touring Opera and Glyndebourne on Tour, drew on her family history and historical research for this production.
Enslaved people were forced to live under strict norms that denied them basic human rights. Brathwaite said those in power used cryptography to target music. They wanted to use their power to control black culture. ”
But he couldn’t hold back the music, he said. “These folklore are very powerful. They’re about resistance, they’re about remembering their former freedom, but they’re also about building something that will be passed on to future generations.”
In 1816, Barbados slaves revolted, burning sugarcane fields and destroying property. The rebellion lasted for almost two weeks until the colonial governor managed to restore order. By then, the insurgents had caused property damage worth over £170,000 to him.
Their folk songs have survived as oral tradition and are now part of Barbados’ national curriculum, Brathwaite said. important to.”
His opera, Rebellion, also examines music that slaves use as a “weapon of oppression,” including propaganda songs in favor of slavery.
In many communities, Brathwaite said, “the enslaved people had polyrhythms and melodic lines permeated from West Africa with very strong English sounds. Their tenacity and resilience made them their own.” We were able to keep the , and create something completely new.”
A rebellion was “an attempt to expose how people were fighting for their rights and claim their humanity.”
The singer has collaborated on opera with director Ellen MacDougal, writer Emily Abboud, and music director Ishani Peripannayagam. Barbados pianist and composer Stephen Walcott is a cultural consultant.
An audience, including schoolchildren and community groups, will be invited to participate in a discussion on the subject of rebellion in a “half-stage share” of the work in progress at ROH’s Lynbury Theater in London.
Theater Creative Producer Sarah Crabtree said: Showing the work in progress to the public was “scary, but exciting,” she added.
Brathwaite said: We wanted something that was responsive to what people were thinking and the stories they wanted to see on stage. So a big part of this process is getting feedback. ”
He said he hoped the final work would include the story of his black ancestors, Addo and Margaret, one of the opera singer’s white ancestors who lived in Barbados. It was owned by John Brathwaite, who owned four plantations. Margaret was the daughter of another prominent white slave and an unknown enslaved African mother.
The couple, who had 11 children, were emancipated and became slave owners during the 1816 Rebellion for “good behavior”. I was looking for a hero, this roots-style Kunta Kinte his character, a freedom fighter, so it’s a very difficult history to stomach.
“But this history shows that people resisted in different ways. And for Add, it was clearly to secure the future of his family. It’s not as black and white as we sometimes want it to be. It’s really very complicated.”
The trauma of slavery was “so deep that you can still see its consequences today,” said Brathwaite. “But generations of black families have erased much of this. My mother knew nothing about the history of slavery growing up in Barbados in the 1950s. did not speak
“I really want to find a way to use opera – music production and storytelling – to find justice and healing for all of us.”
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