How many Indigenous artists does it take to make an Opera Indigenous? That was one of many questions up for discussion at Stories Don’t Die presented by the Artists of Indians on Vacation at the Terminal Theatre on Saturday afternoon. The backdrop to all this of course is the withdrawal of Edmonton Opera from their role in the creation and presentation of Ian Cusson and Royce Vavrek’s Indians on Vacation in February following the not entirely unexpected “revelation” that Thomas King; author of the novel on which the opera is based, is not Indigenous as he had long claimed. Edmonton Opera chose, unilaterally, to pull out after a protest by a small group of Indigenous activists in Edmonton. To the protesters, the false claim by Thomas King was reason enough to cancel an opera they hadn’t seen but is it? The Artists of Indians on Vacation clearly believe otherwise and Stories Don’t Die makes a strong case for its survival and further development.

So how did Stories Don’t Die work? It was a presentation of extracts from the opera interspersed with personal statements from some of the artists about their views on the cancellation and the impact it had had on them, followed by a Q&A. In my mind a strong case for the opera was made. Why do I say that?

On the evidence of what we saw on Saturday it’s a worthwhile opera dramatically and musically
If it matters, and I’m not sure it does, it’s essentially an Indigenous opera
It matters to the people who created it. It tells a kind of Indigenous story that’s not told nearly enough and the hard, creative work of many people; Indigenous and settler, is embodied in the project.

It’s a good opera

The opera is cleverly crafted in a series of scenes dealing with the visit of Mimi and Bird to Prague; it’s part vacation for two decidedly bougie “Indians” and part search for an ancestral medicine bundle. The optimistic Mimi (Marion Newman) is trying to have fun while her depressive husband Bird (Evan Korbut) is tormented by demons he can’t leave behind and dreams of dying in Prague. He’s also tormented by a weird game designer (Giles Tomkins) who explains (at length) his very peculiar latest video game. The demons (Julie Lumsden, Keely McPeek, Asitha Tennekoon, Danlie Rae Acebuque and Giles) are very funny and exactly the sort of thing that one deals with when depressed. Incidents from their vacation are interlaced with flashbacks to episodes in their lives.

The scenes we see, presented here in a stripped down form directed by Yvette Nolan, deal with, among other things, Kafka, defenestration, angst about whether their work (photojournalist and painter) can change anything and there’s a hilarious scene of Mimi trying to seduce Bird while in the bath. The dialogue is crisp and the score is a typical, colourful, compolex, tonal Ian Cusson score. It’s sympathetic to the singers (everything clearly audible without surtitles) and the sort of music one wants to hear more than once to fully grasp it.

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