In October 2021, we announced As Told By: History, Race, and Justice on the Opera Stage, the most extensive and ambitious presentation of opera by Black composers to ever take place in the US. Ulysses Kay's Frederick Douglass is the second of five installments of five operas depicting vital figures of Black liberation and thought across 250 years of history.
Frederick Douglass, Ulysses Kay's final opera and his second on themes of Black American equality, premiered in 1991. In Kay’s unique blend of lyricality and angularity and with a libretto from Kay’s frequent collaborator, Donald Dorr, a story is told of Fredrick Douglass’ final years. While the true history remains a shadowy mass of conspiracy, trial, and conflict, Dorr and Kay use fiction, narrative, and music to search ever deeper into the tragic disassembly of Douglass’ image, reputation, and life after the Civil War. Dorr summarized the central questions of the opera: “How much of Douglass's fall was perpetrated by unseen hands? Frederick Douglass had won the war. Could he survive the peace?”
Though Kay considered the work his magnum opus, it has not been performed in full since its premiere. BMOP is proud to return this work to the stage after nearly 35 years and to release the first commercial recording of the opera.