Sundance - World Premiere of
An Original Opera by Matthew J. Walton
"Listen to me! Listen! I am the Indian voice.
Hear me crying out of the wind,
Hear me crying out of the silence.I am the Indian voice. Listen to me!
I speak for our ancestors,
They cry out to you from the unstill grave.
I speak for the children yet unborn,
They cry out to you from the unspoken silence.We are your own conscience calling to you.
We are you yourself
crying unheard within youPut your ear to the earth
and hear my heart beating there.
Put your ear to the wind
and hear me speaking there.We are the voice of the earth,
of the future,
of the mystery.Hear us."
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.
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