
Omar
By Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels
Dates
November 5-21
Composers
Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels
Librettist
Rhiannon Giddens
Price
Starting at $26
Run Time
2 hours, 45 minutes including one intermission
Language
English
Writing is the preservation of identity in the new opera Omar from Grammy award-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens and composer Michael Abels. A true story of an indomitable faith enshrined in a two-hundred-year-old autobiography in an opera acclaimed by The New York Times as a “sweeping achievement.”
In the early 1800s, Islamic scholar Omar Ibn Said is forcibly taken from his village in West Africa and sold into slavery in Charleston, South Carolina. Attempting to flee, he is imprisoned in Fayetteville and taken to the plantation of another slaveholder, eager to convert him to Christianity. There Omar records his story in Arabic, transforming his world into an expansive canvas of text and faith, profoundly realized in Kaneza Schaal’s transcendent production.
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The true story of a 19th century Islamic scholar from West Africa, enslaved in South Carolina, but finding identity and faith through the written word.
Composer and Librettist
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* San Francisco Opera Debut
PERFORMANCES
November 5, 7, 11, 15, 17, 21, 2023
Co-commission and co-production by Spoleto Festival USA, Carolina Performing Arts at UNC Chapel Hill, LA Opera, San Francisco Opera, Boston Lyric Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago
This production is made possible, in part, by Marcia Barinaga & Corey Goodman; Bob Ellis; Louise Gund; and Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem