La Belle de La Bête

Pete Wyer and Clarke Melville

Music: Pete Wyer
Words: Clarke Melville

Music Director: Tom Blunt

Henry Marlborough/Canecutter/Chorus: Alistair Brookshaw
Zeek Brathwaite/Gerald Brathwaite/Canecutter/Chorus: Matthew Duncan
Jackman Mayers/Canecutter/Chorus: Adam Green
Sonia Brathwaite/Canecutter/Chorus: Gweneth-Ann Jeffers
Terencia Brathwaite/Canecutter/Chorus: Hyacinth Nicholls
Lady Walker/Canecutter/Chorus: Claire Platt
Edward Walker, Earl of Gawthrup/Canecutter/Chorus: Ben Thapa

Artwork: Patrick Foster

This sixties-Barbados, upbeat, lyrical opera is the love story of Sonia, a mercurial Barbadian, and Edward, an English aristocrat, trapped in their nightmarish history of enslaver and enslaved. The musicality of the Barbadian language vocalises, and English cadences transform a divisive past into a shared future for present-day British-Barbadian culture. Supported by Arts Council England.The first act of La Belle de la Bete was performed at the Tete a Tete Opera Festival, London in August 2013.