Omar

Composer: Rhiannon Giddens
Librettist: Rhiannon Giddens
Company: Lyric Opera of Chicago

Synopsis

Omar Ibn Said, a scholar and content Muslim man in Senegambia (1807), is captured and transported to Charleston. He does share a language with those shackled near him on the ship; language barriers obscure identities. At a Charleston slave auction, Omar's communication struggles continue until Julie, another slave, hears him speak a Muslim/Arabic greeting; her father was Muslim. She tells Omar she is escaping to Fayetteville before he is sold. Omar works on a plantation with a master who is frustrated that this ignorant brute can't understand him; he escapes. In Fayetteville, he is found writing Arabic characters in a church. Julie hears about it and, knowing it must be Omar, convinces her Master to buy him. Some time later, Master has Omar writing passages from the Bible in Arabic as a means of conversion. Omar complies, but includes his desire to go home and worship in his community. Master asks him to write his life's story to demonstrate his successful conversion.