A world premiere opera by Rhiannon Giddens in 2020
June 13, 2019
Spoleto Festival USA announces its commission of a new full-length opera by MacArthur Fellow and Grammy Award-winner Rhiannon Giddens (pictured left), based on the life and autobiography of Omar Ibn Said. The opera will have its world premiere during the 2020 Festival (May 22 – June 7), where it will reopen the College of Charleston Sottile Theatre.
The Festival’s choice of tapping Rhiannon Giddens to mold this opera was an easy decision. A musical archaeologist known for exploring the legacy of African-American folk traditions, Giddens also studied opera and vocal performance at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
Opening in Senegal, the opera’s narrative traces Omar Ibn Said’s spiritual journey from his life in West Africa to his capture and enslavement in the Carolinas. At age 37, he was transported to Charleston’s Gadsden’s Warf in 1807—the port where more than 100,000 West Africans were brought to America before the importation of slaves was banned in 1808. Today, as many as 60 percent of African-Americans are able to trace their roots to Charleston.
Upon arrival in the United States, Ibn Said was sold to a Charlestonian, but escaped and fled to North Carolina, where he was recaptured, sent to jail, and then resold to James Owen, the brother of one of the state’s governors. Ibn Said penned his autobiography in Arabic in 1831. It is considered the only surviving, unedited autobiography of a Muslim slave written in Arabic in the United States. In 2017, the work—which had spent decades unaccounted for and then years in private collections—was acquired by the Library of Congress and earlier this year was translated into English and digitized as part of a collection of 42 documents, letters, and newspaper clippings surrounding the original manuscript.
To create the opera’s libretto, Giddens has carried out extensive research and studied with numerous religious leaders and scholars, including Ayla Amon of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. The opera will explore the themes of religion, spirituality, and redemption, following Ibn Said’s experience as an enslaved Muslim in a foreign and often horrific environment.
Musically, the work incorporates West-African traditions with conventional Western opera instrumentation. It is composed for a cast of seven, small chorus, and orchestra, and the work will be conducted by Festival Resident Conductor and Director of Orchestral Activities John Kennedy.
This opera was commissioned with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust, and OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Female Composers program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
The full season of Spoleto Festival USA will be announced in January 2020, with tickets on sale to the public later that month.
