#spoleto festival
Congratulations to Rhiannon Giddens on the world premiere of Omar, her new opera with Michael Abels, at Spoleto Festival USA last night! Performances continue there through June 12.
Future performances of Omar will be given by LA Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Boston Lyric Opera, San Francisco Opera, and Carolina Performing Arts.
As seen in Sunday’s New York Times: feature on Rhiannon GiddensandOmar, her new opera with Michael Abels, which gets its world premiere at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC, this Friday. You can read it online here.
“Every person puts their imprint on tradition,” Rhiannon Giddens tells the New York Times’ Brian Seibert in a feature on Omar, the new opera she wrote with Michael Abels, ahead of its world premiere at Spoleto Festival in Charleston next week. “We can look at music and see where we have come together.” You can read the article here.
Rhiannon Giddens performs “Julie’s Aria,” a song from Omar, the new opera she wrote with Michael Abels, in a new recording with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi and guitarist Bill Frisell. You can hear it here.Omar, which receives its long-awaited world premiere at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC, next Friday, is based on the life and autobiography of enslaved Muslim scholar Omar Ibn Said, who was forcefully brought to Charleston from Africa in 1807.
“My work as a whole is about excavating and shining a light on pieces of history that not only need to be seen and heard, but that can also add to the conversation about what’s going on now,” Giddens says. “This is a story that hasn’t been represented in the operatic world—or in any world.”
Omar will also be performed by LA Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Boston Lyric Opera, San Francisco Opera, and Carolina Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
