Arts & Events

Judging by the wildly enthusiastic applause I heard at the War Memorial Opera House on Sunday, November 5, at the close of the new opera Omar by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels, it would seem that political correctness is all you need these days to win the approbation of opera audiences. I wish to express my extreme disapproval of this tendency. While I gladly acknowledge that the opera Omar, which relates the story of a West African Muslim brought to America as a slave at age 37, mounts an effective plea for respect and tolerance to be granted to this slave’s Muslim faith, I seriously question both Omar’s quality as an opera, which I find rather dubious, and its inability to think in more profound terms than mere political correctness. 

After all, political correctness can shift, often quite dramatically and quickly.. For example, Immediately after Hamas’s surprising and murderous raid on southern Israel on October 7, in which 1,400 Israelis were killed, political correctness then certainly favoured Israel. But now that Israel has mounted a month’s long genocidal attack on Gaza, killing more than 10,000 Gazan civilians, political correctness has shifted in favour of the besieged Palestinians. Perhaps this shift in attitudes toward the current war between Israel and Gaza is in part responsible for the apparent political correctness of the opera Omar’s plea for respect for the slave Omar’s Muslim faith. In any case, let’s examine the notion of political correctness in regard to the opera Omar currently being performed at San Francisco Opera. For starters, the slave Omar Ibn Said is loudly celebrated as the author of the only known account of American slavery written in Arabic. Well enough. However, by reading carefully the book I Cannot Write My Life: Islam, Arabic, and Slavery in Omar Ibn Said’s America, written by Mbaye Lo and Carl W. Ernst, (University of North Carolina Press, 2023), I discover that this much-touted ‘Autobiography’ by Omar Ibn Said is scarcely more than 22 pages long, repeatedly protests that “I cannot write my life,” and limits itself to criticism of one cruel slave master and speaks highly of two brothers who were more charitable slave masters, even as they tried hard, with perhaps some superficial success, to convert this well- educated, devout Muslim to Christianity as the One True Religion. On this latter issue, the opera Omar hedges its bets, having Omar read aloud in English Psalm 23 from a Christian Bible printed in Arabic, yet ending the opera with Omar stating that he loves to read … “the great Qu’ran.” Okay. So under slavery in America Omar learns to respect the Christian religion yet also continues to embrace his Muslim faith. Meanwhile, the whole issue of religious faith iis — or ought to be — at least called into question. There is, in fact, a half-hearted stab at this when a slave girl Katie Ellen,sung here by mezzo-soprano Rehanna Thelwell, sings exultantly of her willingness to die so she may see her Lord Jesus seated at the right hand of God the Father. Okay. We get that when people are under extreme duress and oppression, they may grasp at a religious hope for pie in the sky when they die. But may I suggest that, though Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels certainly don’t go this route, the same reservation about religion applies to Omar Ibn Said and his iclinging tenaciously to his Muslim faith. Enough on the murky realms of political correctness. As opera, Omar, a co-commission by San Francisco Opera with many other institutions, is a musical hybrid, deriving its styles from a wide variety of sources, including West African percussion, bluegrass, spirituals, Protestant hymns, Gershwin (evident in a jazzy hoe-down among the slaves), minimalism, and, according to Michael Abels, “even a touch of Wagner.” (Perhaps fortunately, I did not notice a touch of Wagner.) In case you’re wondering, both Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels are mixed-race individuals who sought to anchor their music in their mixed-racial roots. Once again, however, political correctness does not ensure quality. Often, it curtails it. The music of Omar strikes me as a rather bland mish-mash of American genres more suited to Broadway musicals than to the opera stage. In the role of Omar, tenor James McCorkle sang fervently and forcefully. He was excellent here in the role of Omar he created at this opera’s premiere at the Spoleto Festival in 2022. Mezzo- soprano Taylor Raven was also excellent as Fatima, Omar’s mother. Her appearance to a sleeping Omar in a dream sequence in Scene 5 of Act I was particularly effective when she advises Omar to heed young Julie’s advice he flee Charlotte and go to Fayetteville. Perhaps the vocal highlight of the entire opera was provided in Act II, Scene 2 by soprano Brittany Renee as Julie, the young slave girl who, impressed that Omar took her advice and came to Fayetteville, tells Omar that her father was a Muslim like him. She describes how her father and mother, though from different backgrounds and different religions, loved each other deeply and created a wonderful family for their daughter until her father was sold to another slave master when she was ten years old. In this wonderful aria sung by Brittany Renee, there is more than a hint of a potential love relation developing between Julie and Omar. But, alas, this somehow fails to materialise as the opera concentrates on Omar’s religious faith and ignores all else in his life. This is yet another fault of political correctness, which often fails to recognise that the personal is political, and vice versa. In small roles, baritone Norman Garrett sang effectively as Omar’s younger brother Abdul, who tries in vain to negotiate with the slave-traders in Senegal, only to be deceived when they invade his village and seize slaves.Tenor Edward Graves, bass-baritone Calvin Griffin, and baritone Kenneth Overton had brief roles encountering Omar during their Middle Passage on a slave ship bound for America. Bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch did superb double-duty as both the cruel slave-master Johnson and the charitable slave-master Owen. Tenor Barry Banks also did double-duty as both the slave auctioneer and Owen’s friend Taylor. Mezzo-soprano Laura Krumm was a pert Eliza, the daughter of Jim Owen. Jermaine McGhee was superb as the whirling dervish ancestral figure who repeatedly invokes this story’s African roots with his dances, set to West African percussion music performed on tar, ghaval, talking drum, and djembe, Incidentally, there occurs during the hoe-down by the slaves dancing at the Owen plantation an interesting projection of black-and-white footage showing African Americans dancing in animated fashion. Is this archival footage from slavery times, or is it perhaps footage from Harlem dance halls in mid-20th century? In either case, it’s interesting footage. Throughout the opera there is also interesting footage of Arabic script, presumably quotations cited by Omar from the Qu’ran, which are projected onto screens, curtains or bits of scenery, thereby emphasising the power of the written word for Islam. The conductor was John Kennedy; the Director was Kaneza Schaal; the Designer was Christopher Myers; the Set Designer was Amy Rubin; and Costumes were by April M. Hickman and Micheline Russell-Brown. The production of Omar was generally well done. If only its co-composers Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels had ventured deeper into this story than a superficial level of political correctness, maybe it might have done more to open people’s minds. Omar continues through November 21.