American Indian opera is a subgenre of American music. It began with composer Gertrude Bonnin (1876-1938), also known as Zitkala-Sa ("Red Bird" in Lakota). Bonnin's own Yankton Sioux heritage informed both her libretto and music for her opera The Sun Dance, a grand opera composed with Mormon musician William F. Hanson.
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Significance
Unlike the "American Indianist" attempts at creating operas with American Indian themes (see selected list below) and written by non-Indians, Bonnin's opera, which premiered in 1913, was the work of an American Indian woman of musical advancement. After teaching music and studying violin at Boston's New England Conservatory of Music, Bonnin worked with Hanson to compose an American Indian opera.
She performed and transcribed "Sioux melodies" to which they would add harmonies and lyrics. Because American Indian melodies were an exclusively oral enterprise, the transition from Indian to Western grand opera was, according to Warburton, "like forcing a proverbial square peg into a round hole." Yet, Bonnin and Hanson successfully managed the transition. She also incorporated American Indian singers and dancers into the opera.
The importance of Bonnin for American Indian grand opera cannot be underestimated. Few if any American Indian operas on American Indian themes, using indigenous performers, have been composed by American Indians since her era. This Yankton woman was most likely the first indigenous composer to accomplish the feat. It must be said that she was aided by William F. Hanson, who taught at Brigham Young University and continued to create works based on Native American themes.