To say that she’s possessed may not sound complimentary, but it describes the passion and drive that Trinidadian-British composer Geraldine Connor poured into her production Carnival Messiah, premiered at England’s West Yorkshire Playhouse late last year.
“I could not believe the force I was working with,” said Carnival Messiah’s choreographer, Carol La Chapelle, also a Trinidadian — certainly not unaccustomed to working with artistic geniuses, yet still awed by Connor’s creative spirit.
That force filled the 750-seat theatre for four weeks and brought standing ovations aplenty for the two-and-a-half-hour-long eclectic musical. “The response to Carnival Messiah in England was phenomenal and unprecedented,” said the exuberant Connor. “There’s something very special in terms of what Carnival Messiah is . . . people seem to be taking it to a level I never thought it would reach.”
Connor, the daughter of Edric Connor (the Trinidad and Tobago folklorist, one of the pioneers in exporting local culture), didn’t grow up with her parents, but has still followed in her father’s footsteps. She’s currently a Senior Lecturer in Popular Music Studies at Bretton Hall, University College of Leeds, but her life has been devoted to the arts and West Indian culture. Carnival Messiah, the unusual mixing of an 18th-century biblical classic with Caribbean flavour, is Connor’s way of “taking our culture out to the world.”
Carnival Messiah involves a cast of 130, with 800 costumes, and took seven years to develop. But this is just the beginning of its journey. Connor has intentions of touring England with the production, not to mention Broadway aspirations, and, of course, bringing it to the Caribbean as well.
Even with the long life she envisions for Carnival Messiah, her constantly-on-the-go mind is toying with possibilities for her next project. “I’m into hundreds of different things, but I know my next work is going to be something with contemporary, popular music.”
