Nobel literary laureates Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott are collaborating on a new opera due to be unveiled this fall at the Globe Theatre in London.

The piece, according to the Guardian newspaper, is based on Heaney's acclaimed play The Burial at Thebes and will be set in a South American republic.

The 2004 work retells the original ancient play by Sophocles, which examines Antigone's punishment, to be walled up in a cave, for defying the king of Thebes. Antigone chooses to take her own life rather than submit.

The Irish poet said he's hoping to get a "huge enhancement" of his work from Walcott, who will direct the production with the Trinidadian composer Dominique Le Gendre providing the compositions.

"Heaney's text is so pressing and so contemporary that it has real relevance to the dilemmas we face today, to questions of competing loyalty which recur everywhere in this story," Le Gendre told the newspaper.
A 'rare opportunity'

It marks the first time Heaney has given permission for an operatic version of his works.

The work was commissioned by conductor Peter Manning for his ensemble Manning Camerata.

Heaney says he's excited by the possibilities of an operatic version of his work.

"[It] will sound more deeply and the pity and the terror strike home more immediately," said Heaney.

Heaney, who won the Nobel in 1995, and the St. Lucia-born Walcott, who captured the prize in 1992, are old friends.

"[This piece] offers a rare opportunity for a work of considerable importance and beauty to be seen and heard," said Walcott, 78.

The opera will premiere on Oct. 11 and go on a national tour.