Father of Manitoba, heart of opera Chronicle of Louis Riel life leads Manitoba Opera season as first full-scale production on Canadian mainstage By: Alan Small Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Friday, Apr. 14, 2023

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This article was published 14/04/2023 (876 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Louis Riel’s story is about to grow to operatic proportions.

The father of Manitoba and leader of the Red River Métis during the late 1800s is the title character of Li Keur: Riel’s Heart of the North, a new opera that will be the first full-scale Indigenous-led opera to be presented on a Canadian mainstage.

Li Keur is the creation of Vancouver-based Métis poet Suzanne Steele, whose libretto forms the backbone of the opera. Winnipeg composers Neil Weisensel and Alex Kusturok created the music, which will include five different languages in the performance, including Anishinaabemowin, French-Michif and Heritage-Michif.

There will be three performances, Nov. 18, 22 and 24, at the Centennial Concert Hall.

“Seventy per cent of (Li Keur) is in Indigenous languages because that what would have been spoken then,” says Steele, whose ancestors were original members of the Red River Métis.

“Finally, our story is front and centre. It’s taken me six years to do this, and it’s been a long, hard road.”

Riel led the Red River Resistance in 1869 and negotiated the Manitoba Act with the Canadian government in 1870, but was found guilty of treason and executed in 1885.

Steele says she wants Li Keur to focus on Riel’s life rather than his death, and also concentrate on Indigenous and Métis communities in Manitoba at the time.

“Women are often left out of the narrative,” she says. “I’ve tried to shine a light on women, who have been the economic backbone of the Métis community and are (so important) in the Anishinaabe culture.”

“Women are often left out of the narrative… I’ve tried to shine a light on women, who have been the economic backbone of the Métis community and are (so important) in the Anishinaabe culture.”–Métis poet Suzanne Steele

Kusturok, who is Métis and comes from a family of fiddlers and dancers, performed The Grand Jig and Red River Jig, tunes synonymous with the Métis, at a Manitoba Opera press conference held Friday morning at the concert hall.

“The power of the music, the power of the culture, the power of the history, it’s always been there. Now it’s time for everybody else to see it,” Kusturok says.

The challenge for composing music in the Indigenous languages proved to be rewarding for Weisensel, a composer and Canadian Mennonite University music professor who is more used to composing operas using French, German and Italian.

“Some of the stuff I wrote in English or French, and then it was translated into Indigenous languages, and then I had to rewrite the music, which was fascinating,” Weisensel says. “The best part was meeting the translators, these wise women who are sharing their culture with us.”

Li Keur had been part of the 2020-21 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra schedule, one that was mostly wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I always imagined it as a stage show, but I thought, ‘How are you going to get there?’ because it’s so expensive,” Weisensel says.

Steele, Kusturok, Weisensel and Indigenous translators and elders spent the time improving the story, which has grown into a $1.2-million Manitoba Opera production, $435,000 of which is being underwritten by BMO; another $300,000 comes from a special grant from the province.

It’s a risk worth taking for a company that ordinarily presents operas by European composers but wants to play its part in reconciling with Indigenous cultures that have called the province home for thousands of years, says Larry Desrochers, Manitoba Opera’s general director and chief executive officer.

“There are some history-making moments for this piece. We’re excited about it,” he says. “We’re starting to change our perspective and see the world from an Indigenous perspective.”

“There are some history-making moments for this piece. We’re excited about it… We’re starting to change our perspective and see the world from an Indigenous perspective.”–Larry Desrochers, Manitoba Opera’s general director and CEO

While Manitoba Opera offers a world première in Li Keur to open its 2023-24 season, it will bring back an old favourite in the spring of 2024.

Georges Bizet’s ever-popular Carmen, which the company was going to present in March 2020 before it was cancelled by the pandemic, returns four years later, April 13, 17 and 19, 2024, also at the Centennial Concert Hall.

“It’s not every day when Carmen plays second fiddle to another opera,” Durocher joked during the press conference.

Subscriptions to the new season, as well as tickets for Manitoba Opera’s upcoming production of Mozart’s Così fan Tutti, which runs April 22, 25 and 28, are on sale at mbopera.ca.

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall

Alan Small
Reporter

Alan Small was a journalist at the Free Press for more than 22 years in a variety of roles, the last being a reporter in the Arts and Life section.

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