BMOP and Odyssey Opera to Present Ulysses Kay's Frederick Douglass Opera

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), in partnership with Odyssey Opera, will present the New England premiere of Frederick Douglass at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall on Friday, June 20, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. 

This opera, composed in three acts by prominent 20th-century Black composer Ulysses Kay, features a libretto by Donald Dorr and centers on a fictionalized account of the final year of the renowned Black abolitionist and statesman. Conducted by Gil Rose, this concert version showcases the full BMOP orchestra along with several of today’s leading vocalists, including bassist Kenneth Kellogg (Detroit Opera, Seattle Opera) in the lead role of Douglass.

Though Kay considered the work his magnum opus, Frederick Douglass has not been performed in full since its premiere in 1991. “BMOP is proud to return this work to the stage after nearly 35 years and to release the first commercial recording of the opera,” says Gil Rose, artistic director of both Odyssey Opera and BMOP.  “At a time when our democracy is being tested, we look to history to find strength and inspiration. This Frederick Douglass story provides a conduit through which other significant stories of the time can be told, but most importantly, the role of African Americans in post-Civil War America and Douglass’s influence on it.”

A musical pioneer whose work transcended race, Ulysses Kay (1917-1995) was highly prolific. His output includes 135+ works—a variety of orchestral, choral, and chamber works, a ballet, film scores, compositions for solo instruments, and five operas. Living through the civil rights movement and being married to Barbara Kay—a bold activist and Freedom Rider—the composer was inspired to write more socially conscious works.  

Written between 1979 and 1985, Kay’s final major work Frederick Douglass connects his unique blend of lyricality and angularity with Donald Dorr’s original libretto. A powerful, fictional narrative of the aging Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), Frederick Douglass deals with the struggles of Black American equality. While the true history of Douglass remains a shadowy mass of conspiracy, trial, and conflict, the opera dives deeper into the tragic disassembly of his 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 helped win the war. Could he survive the peace?”

In partnership with Castle of Our Skins, a Boston-based, Black-led chamber music ensemble, the Frederick Douglas production also includes an educational program designed to teach and continue the conversation about Frederick Douglass. Throughout the year, Castle of Our Skins led workshops around Douglass and spirituals with young students from the local Project STEP program. The children’s original musical and narrative responses were used as inspiration by composer Yaz Lancaster who created a new work that will be performed in Boston: May 18th at Symphony Hall, and June 8th at the Museum of African American History as part of Boston Family Day.

In 2021, BMOP unveiled a five-year initiative to elevate opera by Black composers.  As Told By: History, Race, and Justice on the Opera Stage features neglected repertoire, current masterpieces, and new operas by Black American composers that depict vital figures of Black liberation and Black Thought across 250 years of history.

Supported in part by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, As Told By includes New England and world premiere performances of five operas in partnership with Odyssey Opera, along with commercial recordings set to be released on BMOP’s Grammy Award®-winning label BMOP/sound, as well as complementary education and engagement programs developed by Castle of Our Skins. Frederick Douglass is the second of five operas in the As Told By series. The first was the 2022 New England premiere of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. Its debut recording, Anthony Davis: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X (BMOP/sound), was nominated for a 2023 Grammy Award® for Best Opera Recording.