Reencountering Omar ibn Said at SFO

Last night I returned to the War Memorial Opera House to attend the last of six performances by the San Francisco Opera (SFO) of Omar, an opera about the life of Islamic scholar Omar ibn Said composed by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels. Demand for tickets has been high, and it has been comforting to see that an opera that is only about a year old should receive such a massive and appreciative demand for audience seats. One reason may be that an account of Omar’s life and personality makes for a positive and uplifting experience in a time when we seem to be confronted with bad news on all fronts.

Omar (Jamez McCorkle, center) explains Islam to his second owner Owen (Daniel Okulitch, right) while Owen’s friend Taylor (Barry Banks, left) observes (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

Mind you, the narrative itself is not consistently positive. As an Islamic scholar, Omar could not have imagined being torn away from his country to be shipped to South Carolina, where he would be auctioned off as a slave. His relationship with the master that purchased him was far from an agreeable one, and the first of the opera’s two acts concludes with his running to escape his owner. Ultimately, he is taken in by a second master, who learns about Islam while Omar learns more about Christianity.

From a musical point to view, this is an opera based on a thoughtfully-conceived libretto by Giddens. There is a maturity to the text that continued the twentieth-century approach to opera as a performance in which the narrative is as compellingly meaningful as the music. There is so much for the viewer to learn about a variety of topics, including the role of Islam in Africa, the rise of the slave trade, and the “sense of self” of different slaveholders. Indeed, there is so much to keep the mind occupied that my attention to the narrative tended to overshadow the usual interest in vocal talents and expressive acting. Perhaps this is because, under the efforts of Director Kaneza Schaal, the personalities of all the characters (primary and secondary) emerge more through the narrative than through the music.

This is not to dismiss the qualities of the vocal performances. In the title role tenor Jamez McCorkle is “front-and-center” almost all of the time, providing viewers with a richly-developed account of the title character’s life and personality. On the other hand Omar’s two owners are sung by the same bass-baritone, Daniel Okulitch. The first is Johnson, who expects hard work to be the response to all of his demands, leaving Omar with no choice but to flee his plantation. In contrast, the second, Owen, quickly appreciates Omar’s intellectual background, even if he never seems to get his head around the beliefs and practices of Islam.

Nevertheless, it is the personalities that prevail; and Giddens and Abels provided just the right foundations for those personalities to reveal themselves through vocal performance. Ultimately, like Owen, we in the audience are drawn to Omar for what he has to say. What is impressive is how the music is always there to enhance our perception of the verbal content. Ultimately, we come away with a strong impression of an extraordinary life; and I would not be surprised if at least some of us decide to turn to reading matter to learn more about that life.