American Indian opera


American Indian opera is a subgenre of music of the United States. It began with composer Gertrude Bonnin, also known as Zitkala-Sa. Bonnin drew from her Yankton Sioux heritage for both her libretto and songs for the opera The Sun Dance. This full-scale opera was composed with William F. Hanson, a musician and teacher at Brigham Young University.

Significance

Unlike the "American Indianist" attempts to create operas with American Indian themes, with librettos written and music composed by non-Indians, The Sun Dance was a collaboration in which an Indian woman contributed some of the music, although for years she received no credit. She had studied classical music. After teaching music and studying violin at Boston's New England Conservatory of Music, Bonnin worked with Hanson in Utah to compose an American Indian opera.
Bonnin performed and transcribed "Sioux melodies", to which she and Hanson added harmonies and lyrics. Because American Indian melodies had been an oral tradition, trying to adapt them to use in a grand opera was, according to Warburton, "like forcing a proverbial square peg into a round hole." Bonnin and Hanson successfully managed the transition. Ute singers and dancers performed in the opera, although the major roles were performed by European-American singers with opera training.
The importance of Bonnin for American Indian grand opera cannot be underestimated but scholars do not agree on the extent of her role. Few if any American operas on American Indian themes, using indigenous performers, have been composed by American Indians since her era. This Yankton woman was likely the first indigenous composer who can be considered to have achieved this. According to Catherine Parsons Smith, she was aided by William F. Hanson, who taught at Brigham Young University. He continued to compose works based on Native American themes. But Hanson is generally credited as composer for the opera, and Tara Browner describes Zitkala-Sa as a contributor.

Selected "Indianist" operas by non-indigenous composers