Sundance - World Premiere of
An Original Opera by Matthew J. Walton

The story of the trial and incarceration of Leonard Peltier has many facets that make it surprisingly translatable to opera. Peltier's story is not widely known, especially to the youngest generation, because it occurred thirty years ago, with Peltier being literally hidden away in a prison cell for most of that time, making what must often seem, to him and his many supporters, like a futile symbolic sacrifice of his life as a political prisoner. Yet, never daunted, Peltier's supporters work tirelessly for his freedom.

Staying close to the facts of the story surrounding the case, the opera shows that the lesson to be learned from the saga of Leonard Peltier is morally ambiguous, at best. The issue is one that runs deep and is rooted in Native American history. There can be no convenient resolution, no tying up of sub-plots, and no closure, because the story, in and of itself, has never ended. From the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, the opera reveals that, for Native Americans, there has not been an acceptable level of progress on the issues of social progress or social justice in a land that prides itself on justice and progress.

The triumph of Sundance, a new and distinctively American opera with music by Matthew J. Walton and libretto by Leonard Walton, is that the expertise in other areas of its composer, an honors graduate in Music Composition who also holds an MA in Political Science from Syracuse University, has created something relatively new, educational, incredibly moving, and emotionally powerful - all within a familiar and traditional format.

"Ghost Shirts of Wounded Knee, 1890"

Narrator Alex deMontigny, who is from the Lakota Sioux and Nez Perce Native American bloodlines, speaks as the forthright Peltier, using the words that Peltier, himself, has said over the years. The opera begins with an artistic interpretation and revelation of the sometimes shocking events at Wounded Knee in 1890 - well after the Civil War and the Battle of Little Bighorn (Custer's "Last Stand") - when the US cavalry was beginning to round up and disarm the remaining Native Americans. The Ghost Dance was an attempt of a group of North American Indian tribes to further separate themselves from the white man and the religious doctrines they were forcing upon the tribal peoples. Begun by a prophet named Wovoka, his vision embodied the belief that the white man would disappear from the Earth after a natural catastrophe and that the Indian dead would return bringing with them the old way of life that would then last forever. The first dance was held by Wovoka around 1889. Word spread quickly and the Ghost Dance was accepted by many tribes including the Sioux who added the element of a ghost shirt. Among those killed at Wounded Knee were women and children wearing their ghost shirts. The Ghost Dance continued to be danced in more southern tribes, but the end of the movement really came with the deaths at Wounded Knee in 1890.