Covent Garden embraces slavery narrative

ROH press release:

The Royal Opera House today announces Insurrection: A work in progress – a series of semi-staged sharings in the Linbury Theatre, based on a new work currently in development that explores how we come together to understand the legacy of enslavement. The events will run from Tuesday 21 – Saturday 25 March 2023 which is International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Over 200 years on from the Barbados Rebellion (16 April 1816) – an uprising organised by enslaved men and women who worked on the island’s many estates and plantations – baritone, artist and broadcaster Peter Brathwaite is developing Insurrection – investigating his own ancestors, who were enslaved workers and enslavers on sugar plantations in Barbados. Insurrection charts the story of rebellion and resistance in Barbados, and celebrates the human need to gather, move, make music, and tell stories, amid, and in response to, oppression.

Insurrection will be workshopped and rehearsed in the Linbury Theatre throughout March, culminating in a series of sharings presented in the round to schools, community groups and the public. At these sharings, audience members will be asked to reflect on the work, discuss the stories told and explore the music’s impact.

Sharings, huh? Not actual performances.

Not even Va, pensiero, Verdi’s chorus of the Hebrew slaves.

Pictured: Rebellion monument in Barbados