American Indian opera
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American Indian opera is a sub-genre of American music. It began with composer Gertrude Bonnin (1876-1938), also known as Zitkala-Sa ("Red Bird" in Lakota). Bonnin's own Yankton Sioux heritage informed both her libretto and music for her opera The Sun Dance, a grand opera "co-composed" with fellow musician William F. Hansen.[1]
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[edit] Significance
Unlike the "American Indianist" attempts at creating operas with American Indian themes (see selected list below), such as those written by non-Indians, Bonnin's opera, which premiered in 1913, was the work of an American Indian woman of great artistic capability and musical advancement.[2] After teaching music and studying violin at Boston's New England Conservatory of Music, Bonnin and Hansen set out to compose an American Indian opera by performing and transcribing "Sioux melodies" to which they would add harmonies and lyrics.[3] Because American Indian melodies were an exclusively oral enterprise, the transition from Indian to western grand opera was, according to Warburton, "like forcing a proverbial square peg into a round hole."[4] Yet, Bonnin successfully managed the transition, also incorporating American Indian singers and dancers into the opera.[5] The importance of Bonnin for American Indian grand opera cannot be underestimated, considering that few if any American Indian operas on American Indian themes, using indigenous performers, have been composed by American Indian composers since her era. This Yankton woman was most likely the first, and perhaps the most contemporary indigenous composer, to accomplish the feat.
[edit] Selected "Indianist" Operas by non-indigenous composers
- Nevin, Arthur F. (1907). Poia, grand opera. Carnegie Hall.
- Cadman, Charles Wakefield (1912). Daoma: Ramala (Land of Misty Water), opera in four acts. Metropolitan Opera, New York. -- This opera was written in collaboration with Francis La Flesche (Omaha), so I'm not so sure that it is any more "Indianist" than Zitkala-sa's work. For more information see Smith, Sherry L. "Francis LaFlesche and the World of Letters." American Indian Quarterly 25.4 (2001): 579-603.
- Freer, Eleanor Everest (1927). The Chilkoot Maiden, opera in one act. Skagway, Alaska.
- Carter, Ernest Trow (1931). The Blonde Donna: The Fiesta at Santa Barbara, opera comique. Heckscher Theater, New York.
- Smith, Julia Frances (1939). Cynthia Parker, opera in one act. North Texas State University, Denton.
[edit] American Indian opera by American Indian composers
- Bonnin, Gertrude, and Hanson, William F. (1913). The Sun Dance, grand opera. Premiered in Orpheus Hall, Vernal, Utah.
