Opera America Magazine spoke with a range of Native opera professionals about their work and the history and future of Indigenous opera in America. Excerpts from those conversations are collected below, edited for length and clarity and in no particular order.

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Opera America Magazine is exploring the roots of opera in America in a series of essays by renowned cultural historians, artists, and field leaders.

This series is made possible in part thanks to generous support from Melanie Wyler.

"My grandmother taught me that there was always a story behind every story. Sitting on her porch facing the mountain, in Questa, New Mexico, she brought the past to life. That moun­tain was a stage for me. She also taught me that the best storytellers are those who learn how to listen. It was an active responsibility. Opera at its best carries the same experiential quality. The story unfolds before you; breath animates it. The audience is invited not merely to observe but to enter — emotionally, imaginatively — the world being created. Indigenous storytelling often works through metaphor, layered images that invite listeners to imagine rather than simply receive information.

"I own my grandmother’s house now, and I sit on that porch and look at that mountain. It is exactly the same feel­ing I have when I’m sitting in front of the Santa Fe Opera. That’s deliberate for the opera — to recognize that landscape is part not just of the experience, but a part of the story."

— Dr. Estevan Rael-Gálvez, descended from Pawnee, Diné, and Apache
Founder and president of Native Bound Unbound, a digital archive of Indigenous slavery; board member of the Santa Fe Opera and OPERA America

"Young people in the United States are taught very narrow histories. We’re taught that colonization hap­pened from East to West. We’re taught these stories of Thanksgiving as a happy union. So, the opera Sweet Land was looking at both the mythologies of this education and trying to tell the real story, or at least a more complicated story. It evolved into two separate story lines, one being the story of that feast of Thanksgiving, and also the expansion by way of railroad, and what that means in the modern day in terms of continual growth and gentrification. It’s a very dis­jointed, nonlinear story. That became the best vehicle for talking about the misin­formation we’re given."

— Raven Chacon, Diné
Co-composer of the opera Sweet Land with Du Yun; libretto by Aja Couchois Duncan and Douglas Kearney

"When I was young, I would attend the Pueblo Opera Program at Santa Fe Opera. As an adult, I started getting involved as a coordinator and advisor. When we did the opera Doctor Atomic in 2018, we created the Pueblo Opera Cul­tural Council and had a Native American dance performance on the opera stage. It tied into what was going on in Los Alamos during the time of the atomic bomb: Pueblo people have been here since time immemorial, and we’re just downwind from the lab. Tesuque Pueblo shares the fence with the opera — we’re right next door. If there are other opera houses that have an Indigenous community near them, they would be able to create something like this. It’s a venue for people to see another artistic and cultural form."

— Marita Hinds, Tesuque Pueblo
Director of education at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe; member of the Santa Fe Opera’s Pueblo Opera Cultural Council and advisor to the Pueblo Opera Program

"Back in 1976, I wrote my first com­position. If I could write music in high school, why not other Native com­posers? We’ve come full circle with many more Native composers active today. I see opera as another path for Native liter­acy. Notated music can be shared around the world for global performances, and written notation allows for extremely complex ideas to be developed. In 2026, my Requiem for America premieres at Barbican Hall with the BBC Orchestra and at Jordan Hall [in Boston], and I’m working on NOVA, a new commission from the Santa Fe Opera about Natives in space. Going forward, I believe Native opera will be founded on shared Indige­nous self-determination. That includes the oral traditions, but also draws upon opera’s literary and multicultural roots."

— Brent Michael Davids, Mohican/Munsee-Lenape
Composer and co-director of Lenape Center, a Manhattan-based, Indigenous-led nonprofit organization established in 2009 to promote and preserve Lenape culture, arts, and history

"Our social dances are all with shell shakers, so we have an origin story for why that is. Loksi’ Shaali’ is the story of a young girl who goes out to the forest to learn the culture and bring it back to her people, just like the forest stories of ballet and opera. Stories are in our DNA as human beings, and of course, Indian country is replete with legends. To me, that’s a very happy place to be: express­ing things that everybody can relate to, with a really cool cultural specificity. There’s not a lot of American Indian opera. But what I’m excited about is that there’s going to be every type of it. If you put me and Raven Chacon in the same room, you’ve got entirely different styles of music-making already. I want other American Indians to see that and say, 'My gosh, the sky’s the limit. I can do anything I want to.'"

— Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, Chickasaw
Composer and librettist of the opera Loksi’ Shaali’, to be performed by Wilmington Concert Opera at Opera Conference 2026

"My first experience with Indigenous stories in opera was through the Indianist composers, like Victor Herbert, because there was noth­ing else for me that was Indigenous. Lo and behold, here we are 20 years later: Jerod Tate is writing the first Chickasaw opera, and there’s more coming. Many times, there’s a perception that the only stories Indigenous people tell are their heritage stories. For Jerod, that’s very important. For me, it’s more pulling from my heritage to influence my over­all thought process. People will say, 'How does an opera about the women of the French Revolution have anything to do with you being Indigenous?' All I can say is, I’m Indigenous, so I bring my experi­ence to it."

— Kirsten C. Kunkle, Muscogee
Co-founder and artistic director of Wilmington Concert Opera

"I grew up surrounded by storytell­ers. Cherokee storyteller Robert Lewis would travel to different schools — he could change his voice for Bear, for Possum, for Coyote. I was enthralled. I thought, I want to do that. Later, when I performed with Opera Montana, I got to sing the Mother’s Aria from the opera Missing. When you’re a missing Indige­nous woman, you’re put into a database. They’re unnamed — finding them is less urgent, because without a name, they’re not real. But I know mothers; I’ve seen how this impacts our communities; I’ve known people who have gone missing and haven’t been found. The beautiful thing about stories and characters is that there’s always some truth in them. The beginning line in that aria is, 'When you were born, the sun shone bright.' My goal is always to honor them and find that truth, because at the root of it is love."

— Kate Morton, Cherokee
Mezzo-soprano who originated the lead role of Loksi’ (Turtle), a young Chickasaw girl, in the opera Loksi’ Shaali’ in the work’s concert premiere in 2024

"I wanted to tie together very com­plex stories about how difficult it is to live in this colonial system — to sur­vive in it, to exist. There’s no one event that causes a woman to suddenly spi­ral, to snap. I wanted to start with the woman undone, who takes three acts to explain herself. And at the end of the story, she’s still a woman undone — you, the viewer, just have a new understand­ing. That’s my point in the storytelling."

— Autumn Chacon, Diné
Co-creator, along with Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache), of the experimental opera Malinxe, inspired by the 16th-century enslaved woman who gave birth to one of the first mestizos (mixed-race people in Latin America) as well as the Mexican legend of La Llorona

"I was always very aware I was a Cherokee citizen, but my mother was German. I added Native American songs to two recitals I sang in Germany — a little Cherokee lullaby was my main one. Out of all the great operatic arias, it was the best received. It was my concept to do a music drama on the Trail of Tears. My friend Lindor Chlarsson composed it, and the conductor and composer Timothy Long was in the pit. We per­formed a preview of the opera Mountain Windsong in Norman, [Oklahoma], and a preview at the Cherokee Heritage Center attended by Wilma Mankiller [1945–2010], the great, beloved Cherokee chief."

— Barbara McAlister, Cherokee
Mezzo-soprano who originated the role of Qualla in the opera Mountain Windsong (Lindor Chlarsson, composer; Robert J. Conley, author and librettist), adapted from Conley’s novel Mountain Windsong: A Novel of the Trail of Tears

"At a potlatch ceremony, some parts of the ceremony are sacred, and some are just storytelling. Those stories are all told through dance and song, with elaborate regalia, costumes, and masks. To me, it’s not a far stretch to opera. Often, they hit upon the same kind of themes, because those are the stories that society is interested in grappling with. The way people speak about your Indigenous side and your non-Indigenous side is very divided. That doesn’t make sense to me; I’m one per­son. I decided I was going to be open about who I am — that creates a path for others. And I also started to recognize that other people have already been cre­ating that path for me."

— Marion Newman, Kwagiulth and Stó꞉lō First Nations
Mezzo-soprano whose credits include Missing and Shanawdithit, about the woman believed to be the last known member of the Beothuk people in Newfoundland

"I conducted a workshop of Missing [Brian Current, composer; Marie Clements, librettist] in 2016 and the pre­miere in 2017. Whenever, wherever we would perform, we did private perfor­mances for the victims’ families. You heard crying in the first minute that didn’t stop until after the piece was over. Not one person said afterward, 'Oh, I’ve never been to an opera, it’s so strange,' or, 'I’ve never heard contemporary music.' This opera rose above that, to a human level.

"I have also conducted The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro in Prague, in the one existing theater where Mozart conducted. I wore my ribbon shirt for the opening night. There’s a little plaque on the pit floor where Mozart stood. I have two photos: one with feathers around it, and one with my moccasins framing it, as well. It was basically about saying, we are here. And we can do all, and more, than other people can do."

— Timothy Long, enrolled citizen of both the Muscogee Nation and the Thlopthlocco Tribal town and matrilineally Choctaw
Artistic and music director of opera at the Eastman School of Music; president of the Plimpton Foundation, which promotes Native, Indigenous, and other underrepresented American artists