Volume 23 Issue 6 - March 2018

Beat by Beat | On Opera
The Reshaping of
Ryga’s Rita Joe
CHRISTOPHER HOILE
In this exciting month Toronto will see the world premieres of two
new Canadian operas. The first, The Overcoat by James Rolfe, opens
March 29 and is covered elsewhere in this issue. The other is The
Ecstasy of Rita Joe by Victor Davies, which will be presented March 24
and 25 by VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert. Having interviewed Davies
last month and pored through his background paper for the work, the
opera looks to be one of his most important compositions.
As a play The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George Ryga is considered
one of the classics of Canadian drama. It premiered in Vancouver in
November 1967 as a Canada Centennial project. As Davies explains:
“Its impact was electric, as no Canadian play
had been written which confronted issues
head-on between Indigenous and mainline
society.” In simple terms it follows the life of
Rita Joe, who leaves her reservation in search of
greater freedom in the city only to face racism,
drugs, prostitution, rape and murder. Ryga uses
the word “ecstasy” to refer ironically to her final
moments before death. Interwoven with Rita
Joe’s life is that of her friend Jaimie Paul, who
also meets a tragic end.
The play has had many subsequent productions,
most recently at the National Arts Centre
in 2013 with an all-Indigenous cast. In 1971 the
Royal Winnipeg Ballet produced a ballet based
on it choreographed by Norbert Vesak to music
by Ann Mortifee, revived most recently in 2011.
In answer to the question of how Davies came
to create an opera based on the play, he writes
in his background paper: “The genesis of the
idea, that I should make an opera of the play,
came from the insistence/encouragement of two
dear friends: well-known Indigenous stage and
screen actor August Schellenberg, the original
Jaimie Paul in the premiere production of the
play in 1967, and director/producer John Juliani
who produced the CBC radio adaptation of the
play for which I composed the music. Both were
convinced the play contained an opera.
“Ultimately, my two friends were right.
The play is wonderful material for an opera. It is richly textured and
contains vibrant larger-than-life characters, a classic tragic love story,
the theme of young ideas and ambitions thwarted, the clash between
value systems, both societal and generational, pathos, moments of
wonderful humour, the underlying inner drive which calls for music
to emerge in song, and richly poetic dramatic prose to inspire heightened
lyric melody.”
Nevertheless, Davies was still concerned whether today a self-described
“old white guy” should write an opera about Indigenous
people. To determine if he should undertake the project, he consulted
Rebecca Chartrand, a singer and friend with whom Davies collaborated
for the Indigenous music in the Opening Ceremonies of the 1999
Pan Am Games in Winnipeg and who is the Aboriginal Consultant for
Seven Oaks School Division in Winnipeg.
As Davies explains, “Her immediate reaction was that I must
write the opera. She said it spoke directly to the current and important
discussion about the missing and murdered Indigenous women.
This was a turning point for us both. Since this initial meeting until
the present she has been a constant force in urging us to bring the
opera to life.”
In addition to Chartrand, Davies consulted and was encouraged in
the creation of the opera by such members of the Indigenous community
as playwrights Thomson Highway and Kevin Loring, and the
chiefs of various First Nations including Chief Len George (son of
Chief Dan George, who appeared in the play’s premiere).
In answer to the question why the play should become an opera,
Davies lists four goals: “to bring the story, characters and their issues
to new life powered by music; to put the story into a new frame to
engage new publics; to create an important and viable vehicle for
Indigenous opera singers; and to be a catalyst in the discussion about
issues between Indigenous peoples and Canadian society at large.”
A further question Davies addresses is why a play from 1967 should
become an opera now. “This opera speaks to the important topic of
the missing and murdered Indigenous women. Fifty years since the
play’s creation, many serious issues are still unresolved in Indigenous
life: tensions between the reserve and the city and the values they
represent regarding stewardship of nature vs. modernity, conflicts
between generations, the Indigenous world vs. the legal system, and
prejudice against Indigenous
Victor Davies
people in general, all issues
which underpin the problem
of the missing and murdered
women, and the residential
school system.”
Davies says that Chartrand
and Chief Isadore Day in
Toronto and Chief Nepinak
in Winnipeg “all spoke about
how important they felt the
opera would be in bringing
Indigenous issues to mainline
audiences in a new, more
powerful way. They felt that
bringing their story to the stage
for audiences to whom the
Indigenous story was nothing
but a TV clip or a newspaper
footnote would have an enormous
impact. With characters
with whom the audience
could identify, who were alive,
had aspirations, humour, and
though their lives have a tragic
end, the portrayal of these lives
powered by music would bring
home their story.”
Davies approached Opera in
Concert three years ago about
producing the work, and OiC
organized a two-day workshop focusing on the libretto, which he
also wrote. In transforming the play to an opera Davies made many
changes. One was to eliminate the character of the Singer, a figure
present in the play primarily to satirize the lack of understanding of
liberal white people about what is happening to Indigenous people.
While the action shifts back and forth in time, Davies’s libretto tells
the story in chronological order. The five times Rita Joe is called before
a magistrate become part of the libretto’s organizing structure.
In commenting on the score, Davies says: “This work will be
unlike anything I have done, rooted in the ethos of the contemporary
worlds of the reserve, the streets and the city. There will be no actual
Indigenous music or language, but I will create music which reflects
Indigenous music, the characters themselves and their place in both
reserve and city with the necessary contemporary grit, energy and
texture of the 60s. However melody, rhythm, accessibility and immediacy
are hallmarks of my music and will be in this work too. The
score will be eclectic in style as befits characters and action.” Davies
GRAHAM LINDSAY WAVELENGTH MEDIA
16 | March 2018 thewholenote.com