Frederick Douglass (1979)
Kay/Dorr

After the success of their opera Jubilee, laureled composer Ulysses Kay and librettist Donald Dorr were ready to collaborate again, and an opera on Frederick Douglass had already been on their mind. As Dorr explained, “What we wanted to do was to create an opera with a vivid, dynamic black figure – someone who could command the stage and command the audience as he commanded history, and who would bow to no stereotype and who would in the best sense be a role model not only to blacks and whites, but to all people everywhere.”

Rather than create a panorama of Douglass’s life, Kay and Dorr opted to focus on his later years, initially inspired by what W.E.B. DuBois labeled “unwritten history”: the collapse of Douglass’s Freedmen’s Savings Bank, established after the Civil War to serve Black Americans. Did it fail because of embezzlement, or was it an inside job by those against Douglass and against Black liberty? Kay and Dorr follow that latter idea. In their opera, the U.S. government, threatened by Douglass’s influence over Black Americans, intentionally sends Douglass to Haiti on a diplomatic mission doomed to fail in order to soil his reputation. Afraid that Douglass’s second wife, a white woman named Helen, might suffer in the process, the government also plans to rescue her from the resulting fallout. Their entire plot backfires. Though Douglass is unsuccessful in leasing land from Haiti, he receives a warm welcome from the Haitians, his wife remains faithful to him amidst the upheaval, and Douglass passes away in Washington, D.C. with his reputation intact.

Though there is no cast recording, American bass Kevin Maynor who created the title role recorded the aria “Still in Their Chains” for his album The Black Art Song. The aria arrives in Act III of the opera, and Maynor describes it as “Douglass’s protest of the way the Senate and white Americans are looking at the black man.” Maynor says, “The stirring text of the aria is, ‘Still in their chains because they have no hope, ridden by fear and hungry for the truth: so men yet die the death that ends all others. We pass them by and death takes their souls.’” The entire score is available to peruse for free online on Presser’s Issuu account, and Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library holds the collection of Kay’s papers, many of which detail the making of Frederick Douglass.

Before the opera’s premiere, Maynor told New York Times, “Certainly this piece can make peace, and it’s needed at this time.” His words were prophetic: The opera premiered only four months before the Crown Heights riots and about a year before the Los Angeles riots of 1992 over the police death of Rodney King. Reviewing the world premiere, New York Times writer Bernard Holland said, “In an America where racial harmony now seems to be modulating into a new and difficult key, the opera’s themes of racism and miscegenation, and its crosscurrents of persecution and paranoia from both sides of the black-white spectrum could only speak loudly to contemporary concerns.” That quote rings equally true today as racial justice continues to be a contemporary concern in so many realms of American life: policing and criminal justice, education, healthcare, and more. The idea of government coverups and conspiracy theories also has potent resonance today; extremists link everything from mass shootings to the changing demographics of our country to a malicious government scheme. Frederick Douglass can also stand among more recent operas illustrating the lives of Black civil rights leaders, including X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, Sanctuary Road about abolitionist William Still, This Little Light of Mine about voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, and the upcoming Loving v. Virginia.

“Dr. Ulysses Kay was a wonderful composer, gentleman and colleague. His music speaks for itself - it is true and honest, and never driven by fashion. Those who were fortunate enough to know him also saw his gentleness and kindness. I am lucky to have known him.” –John Corigliano