Opera ‘Omar’ wins Pulitzer for Music

‘Omar,” a new opera created by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music on Monday after drawing sold-out crowds to the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre last weekend.

The opera, which was co-composed by Giddens and Abels with a libretto by Giddens, was commissioned in part by Boston Lyric Opera. The production, directed by Kaneza Schaal, traveled to BLO following the opera’s world premiere at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, S.C., last summer and subsequent performances in Los Angeles and Giddens’s native North Carolina.

In a phone interview, BLO general director and CEO Bradley Vernatter recounted the “eager audience response” during the run. “To cap it off with [the Pulitzer] announcement just signals to me that this is the type of work … that BLO should be creating for Boston,” he said.

“Omar” dramatizes several years in the life of Omar ibn Said (1770-1864), an Islamic scholar born in present-day Senegal who was kidnapped at age 37 and sold into slavery in the United States. Here, he wrote numerous manuscripts in Arabic, including the only known autobiography in the Arabic language by a person enslaved in the United States. He started attending church and was said to have converted to Christianity, but recent research into his life and writings has called into question whether he actually converted or feigned conversion for his own safety.

Brianna J. Robinson, a Bostonbased soprano and member of BLO’s emerging artist program who sang the principal role of Omar’s friend Julie last weekend, said it “makes so much sense” that people were drawn to the opera. “I’m excited about the trajectory of the show,” she said in a phone interview. “More people are going to be exposed to this story.” The opera will run at San Francisco Opera this November, and Lyric Opera of Chicago is also planning to present it in a future season.

“Omar” is the first opera by both Giddens and Abels. Giddens, a singersongwriter and multi-instrumentalist with two Grammy wins and six more nominations, trained as an operatic soprano before embarking on her genre-crossing career. Abels wrote numerous concert pieces and worked as a K-12 music educator before film director Jordan Peele tapped him to write scores for his acclaimed thrillers, including “Get Out” and “Nope.”

Though no further live performances of “Omar” are scheduled in the Boston area, Boston classical radio station CRB recorded the production for an episode of “In Concert” that will air later this year.