Omar

What does it mean to tell a story? How do we reckon with the gaps in our history? These questions and more animate Omar, an opera from librettist Rhiannon Giddens and acclaimed composer Michael Abels. This Pulitzer Prize-winning opera details the life of Omar ibn Said, a West African scholar enslaved in the Carolinas, drawing details from ibn Said’s own 1831 autobiography—the only known document of an enslaved person written in Arabic. Notably, the autobiography is also the sole extant slave narrative authored by someone enslaved at the time of writing. Omar helps bring this vital document and its author into the light.

Again and again, the opera returns to questions of storytelling and the historical record. Drawing from a range of sources—including documents from Carolina’s Louis Round Wilson Library—Omar fuses substantive research with stunning arias to tell a profound story of strength, resistance, and religious conviction in the face of harrowing circumstances. The geographic range of Omar is as vast as ibn Said’s transatlantic life, stretching from Futa Torro (present-day Senegal), where he was forced to board a ship at the age of 37, to Charleston, South Carolina, the site of his initial enslavement, to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he lived out his final 50 years enslaved by the Owen brothers, who had prominent connections to the University of North Carolina.

For Giddens and Abels, the 2023 performance of Omar in Chapel Hill was a powerful moment. Both Giddens and ibn Said are North Carolinians, and some UNC scholars believe that Omar himself likely walked the grounds of Carolina’s campus while traveling the state with his enslavers. In addition, the performance took place just hours away from ibn Said’s final resting place in Fayetteville—a site of narrative and historical significance.

Omar transcends biographical facts to creatively realize the world of ibn Said’s life and his steadfast Muslim faith through an imaginative soundscape. This rich sonic tapestry, combining West African and Arabic sounds and modes with deep southern cultural musical traditions, imagines the sounds of Omar’s world through the lens of a modern composer. As a singular achievement, the final product is one reimagined telling of a told and untold life—and one version out of infinite possible versions of Omar ibn Said’s story.

Omar was co-commissioned and co-produced by Spoleto Festival USA and Carolina Performing Arts at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Additional co-commissioners include LA Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, San Francisco Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago.