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CMU faculty, students, alumnus thrilled to participate in Indigenous opera premiere
Li Keur: Riel’s Heart of the North, Manitoba Opera, November 2023
Li Keur: Riel's Heart of the North premiered last month in a rush of vibrant colour, rich story, and lively music and dance. The production, performed by Manitoba Opera, sold out each of its three performances at the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg on November 18, 22, and 24.
Li Keur is the first full-scale Indigenous-led opera to be presented on a Canadian mainstage. "I wish to place the beautiful Indigenous languages, cultures, and narratives of the central continent—those that have been relegated to a historical footnote at best, a nuisance or a threat at worst—to their rightful place at the heart of cultural institutions of the region," said Métis poet and scholar Dr. Suzanne Steele.
Steele conceptualized the story and wrote the libretto of Li Keur. The music was composed by Métis fiddler Alex Kusturok, who performed onstage, and CMU faculty Neil Weisensel, who conducted the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. The performances also featured eight vocal soloists, a children's choir, an adult choir, a narrator, fiddlers, and dancers.
Centre: Julie Lumsden (Marguerite),
L to R: Scott Rumble (Black Goose #2), Jera Wolfe (dancer), Michelle Lafferty (Black Goose #1),
Li Keur: Riel's Heart of the North, Manitoba Opera, November 2023.
Photo: R. Tinker
Indigenous language keepers have played a vital role in developing Li Keur's story, translating Steele's English libretto into Heritage-Michif, French-Michif, Anishinaabemowin, and French, all of which are sung throughout the opera. "I am particularly pleased for Indigenous peoples to hear the syllables and the cadences of their languages performed centre stage, where they belong and should have been heard for the past 150+ years," Steele said.
The translators are Mesdames Vera de Montigny, Andrea Rose, Suzanne Zeke, Joyce Dumont, Donna Beach, and Debra Beach Ducharme; Monsieurs Jules Chartrand and Francis Fontaine; and Mesdames June Bruce, Lorraine Coutu, and Agathe Chartrand (granted honorary doctorates).
Weisensel, Assistant Teaching Professor of Music at CMU, then recorded the translators speaking the text in their Indigenous languages. This guided his composition, taught singers pronunciation, and contributed to a database that will preserve the languages.
"It's very exciting! I can't wait to see the final production," said Bruce at Manitoba Opera's season launch. "It was hard but...we enjoyed it. Working with Neil and Suzanne was awesome."
Li Keur: Riel's Heart of the North, Manitoba Opera, November 2023.Photo: R. Tinker
Current CMU students Katrina Lengsavath, Erik Gillespie, and Emily Myers sang and acted in the opera chorus. "Singing in the Li Keur opera chorus was such a treat!" said Lengsavath, a fourth-year CMU student studying biochemistry and social sciences. "I learned a lot and felt so honoured to perform with and support Indigenous, French Canadian, and Métis artists in reclaiming their history through this production."
Nolan Kehler, CMU alumnus of 2017, was the tenor soloist who played the character of La Roche, a French-Canadian man. As one of only a few non-Indigenous performers in the opera, he said the experience was humbling. "The main thing I noticed was how much listening I was doing, participating alongside as opposed to actively forging to create something, especially coming at this as a settler artist," he said. "It was definitely stepping into a process of reconciliation through art each and every day."
One of the most special parts of Kehler's experience was wearing a pair of mukluks as part of his costume. They were handmade specifically for his feet and adorned with traditional Métis beadwork. "They were a very literal way for me to step into the story, into someone else's life, culture, and way of walking in the world," he said.
Centre: Evan Korbut (Louis Riel),
Li Keur: Riel's Heart of the North, Manitoba Opera, November 2023.
Photo: R. Tinker
The story is one that celebrates Métis languages, music, culture, and women. It begins with an imagined creation legend about the Métis people involving a female hunter, a buffalo, and the stars. This is woven together with a present-day narrative of a young Métis woman learning about her great-great-grandmother's connection to Louis Riel in 19th-century Montana, as her family history comes to life on stage.
"When writing of Riel, one could write a thousand operas, but I have no interest in a masculinist narrative, political cliché and expectations, tropes of madness, power, etc." Steele said. "Instead, I choose to focus on his relationship with a real woman... Josette, her relationship with an Anishinaabe cousin, Marie Serpent, and the rich, under-siege Indigenous peoples of the 1870s-90s. This approach opens a world of creativity and potentially one of truth and reconciliation should a non-Indigenous audience choose to listen carefully."
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