GIIWEDIN by Spy Dénommé-Welch and Catherine Magowan, directed by Maria Lamont, with Marion Newman, Ryan Allen, Jesse Clarke, James McLennan, Catharin Carew and Nicole Joy-Fraser. Presented by Native Earth and An Indie(n) Rights Reserve at Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson). Opens tonight (Thursday, April 8) and runs to April 24, Wednesday-Friday 8 pm, matinee Saturday 2:30 pm. $25, Friday and Saturday pwyc. 416-504-7529. See listing.
Native Earth Performing Arts is known for telling tales by First Nations playwrights. In its latest production, Giiwedin, the story is going to be sung, not spoken.
Presented in association with An Indie(n) Rights Reserve, the opera Giiwedin follows the history of Noodin-Kwe, a centuries-old northern Ontario native woman who fights European civilization’s intrusion into her forest home.
“Part of my inspiration is an ancestor from the Timiskaming region,” says librettist Spy Dénommé-Welch, who co-wrote the music with Catherine Magowan. “She voiced concerns at the turn of the 20th century about land taken without agreement and compensation that never materialized.
“For her to articulate these complaints took courage, and while I never met my ancestor, I’ve used her energy to inform Noodin-Kwe.
Writing the character is a way of honouring my past,” adds the librettist, whose text combines English, French and Anishnaabemowin.
Dénommé-Welch and Magowan’s score blends First Nations music and baroque opera, a unique combo.
“The baroque element is appropriate, given that at the time of contact opera was just starting to thrive in Europe,” explains the librettist, a classically trained violinist as well as a playwright and film composer.
“Much of the libretto places Noodin-Kwe at a point of personal contact with European civilization, so the connection is a clear one. For me, the baroque sound has to do with textures and colours that make an Old World connection and link the story to an older time.”
Noodin-Kwe is seen in two time periods, first when she meets a French surveyor named Jean and is forced to battle a secretive, power-hungry government minister in the 1890s. Later, in the 1950s, she’s locked in a prison psych ward, the subject of experimentation by a controlling doctor and about to give birth to a son.
“I wanted to combine the real with the hyper-real so the audience could suspend its disbelief,” explains the writer, who’s also finishing a PhD and working at OCAD as program development consultant in the aboriginal visual culture program.
“In other words, there’s historical currency to the story, but we can play with the form, bend the rules. It follows the Anishnabe oral tradition with which I was raised, one where storytellers can invent a universe and apply different laws there.”
His libretto blends a story about the intrusion of the railroad into northern Ontario with wolf and bear characters who help Noodin-Kwe defend the native way of life.
“I see them as people with the characteristics of animals,” he says. “The wolves, led by Mahigan, go outside the boundaries of the forest, taking stock of what’s happening, while the bear, Mahkwa, is a mighty warrior once awakened.”
Scored for violin, harpsichord, cello and the long-necked archlute, the piece offers audiences “an operatic female protagonist, strong and large in term of what she takes on,” notes the librettist. “She’s Shakespearean in scale, a proper character for the period’s rough northern Ontario.
“But I juggle that strength with Noodin-Kwe’s vulnerability, the fact that she has no control over her fate. That’s her dilemma, and everything and everyone around her – the human characters, the animals, even the forest itself – watches how her story will work out.
“The opera looks at the uncomfortable paradoxes that people face. It’s not an us/them tale rather, it’s about the decisions we make and the consequences we must live with as a result.”[rssbreak]
Additional Interview Clip
The opera’s title
jonkap@nowtoronto.com
