Opera Indigene: Re/presenting First Nations and Indigenous C

Pamela Karantonis is Senior Lecturer in Voice at Bath Spa University, UK. She is a Convenor of the Music Theatre Working Group of The International Federation for Theatre Research. She is joint editor and contributing author for Cathy Berberian: Pioneer of Contemporary Vocality (Ashgate, 2014) and The Legacy of Opera (2013).

The representation of non-Western cultures in opera has long been a focus of critical inquiry, however, the diverse relationships between opera and First Nations and indigenous cultures have received less attention. Opera Indigene addresses the changing historical depictions of indigenous cultures in opera and the more contemporary hybridizations of the form by indigenous and First Nations artists. Drawing upon postcolonial theory, ethnomusicology, cultural geography and critical discourses on nationalism and multiculturalism, the collection brings together experts on opera and music in Canada, the Americas and Australia.

Contents: Introduction, Pamela Karantonis and Dylan Robinson; Part I Critical and Comparative Contexts: Opera's Colonizing Force and Decolonizing Potential: Orpheus conquistador, Nicholas Till; Decentering opera: early 21st-century indigenous production, Beverley Diamond; 'Singing from the margins': postcolonial themes in Voss and Waiting for the Barbarians, Michael Halliwell; Performativity mimesis, and indigenous opera, Pamela Karantonis. Part II Australian Perspectives: 'To didj or not to didj': exploring indigenous representation in Australian music theater works by Margaret Sutherland and Andrew Schultz, Anne Boyd; Giving voice to the un-voiced 'witch' and the 'heart of nothingness': Moya Henderson's Lindy, Linda Kouvaras; The Eighth Wonder: explorations of place and voice, Anne Power. Part III Indianism in the Americas: Indianismo in Brazilian romantic opera: shifting ideologies of national foundation, Maria Alice Volpe; Native songs, Indianist styles and the process of music idealization, Tara Browner; Composed and produced in the American West, 1912-1913: two operatic portrayals of First Nations cultures, Catherine Parsons Smith. Part IV Canadian Perspectives: Assimilation, integration, and individuation: the evolution of First Nations musical citizenship in Canadian opera, Mary I. Ingraham; 'Too much white man in it': aesthetic colonization in Tzinquaw, Alison Greene; Peaceful surface and monstrous depths: Barbara Pentland and Dorothy Livesay's The Lake, Dylan Robinson; The politics of genre: exposing historical tensions in Harry Somers's Louis Riel, Coleen L. Renihan. Part V New Creation and Collaborative Processes: Creating Pimooteewin, Robin Elliott; After McPhee: Evan Ziporyn's A House in Bali, Victoria Vaughan; West coast First Peoples and The Magic Flute: Tracing the journey of a cross-cultural collaboration, Robert McQueen interviewed by Dylan Robinson, with responses by Cathi Charles Wherry and Tracey Herbert, Lorna Williams, and Marion Newman; P