"The fool". It traces the life of the poet John Clare against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution, from his roots in rural East Anglia via literary success in London to his final years in a lunatic asylum. "We Come to the River'' is a violent fable of moral and political awakening in which a cruel general learns through his impending blindness to ''see'' the human suffering that his way of life has caused.

The fool: scenes of bread and love -- Clare poems -- We come to the river (libretto).