A Lingít opera, nearly a decade in the making, is debuting in Juneau this Friday. An entirely Indigenous cast of singers and dancers will tell the story of the Battles of Sitka while accompanied by an orchestra playing original music. The battles were between Southeast Alaska Native people and Russian invaders in the early 1800s.
Last week, some of the people who brought “Ḵutulagaaw: The Tlingit-Russian Battles” together spoke about the project on Juneau Afternoon.
Kaaháni Rosita Worl, director of Sealaska Heritage Institute and the woman behind the idea for the project said Lingít people have historically performed operas.
“We would perform them in natural amphitheaters. You know, located adjacent to our villages, our actors, actresses would be dressed in their — I wouldn’t say costume, but maybe regalia — and they would perform songs and they would tell stories, ancient stories,” she said. “The opera is not nothing new to us.”
Language professor and translator for the opera X̱’unei Lance Twitchell said the project has reminded him of people who contributed to the project who have since died. He said he thought of Nora Marks Dauenhauer and Richard Dauenhauer, who wrote about the events the opera is based on.
“They didn’t get to see this,” he said. We didn’t get to this thing in time, but their grandkids will see it, and their kids will see it, and their energy and work is with us.”
And, Twitchell said, attendees become a part of that work moving into the future.
“What I want people to take away from (this) is to know that they’re seeing the culmination of hundreds of years of work to keep these stories going,” he said. “And that they’re part of that movement to keep the story going and to take our language everywhere.”
“Ḵutulagaaw: The Tlingit-Russian Battles” opens Friday at Thunder Mountain Middle School and runs through Sept. 20. Tickets are available at ptalaska.org.
