Little Ones: an Opera

Libretto by Rhiana Yazzie | Music by Danielle Jagelski

LITTLE ONES

Little Ones explores life at Intermountain Indian School, a Native American Residential School in Brigham City, Utah, during its final year, 1984.

When the students at Intermountain are told that the school will close at the end of the year, they decide to fight to keep it open, as many of them have no other place to go. The students grapple with the complexities of assimilation guided by the Church and the difficulties of coming of age in a rapidly changing world.

Seven characters include Marigold, an Ojibwe girl uprooted from her reservation in Northern Minnesota; Lily, her best friend, a Navajo girl from a sheep farm; Jackson, Marigold's rebellious boyfriend learning to be a man; Victor, a Navajo boy trying to stay out of foster care; Mrs Ross, a 20-year-old white teacher at the school; and Ruby, The Lunch Lady, the caretaker and matriarch.

We follow the students through their senior year of high school as they work in vain to keep the school open, when the US government decides the close the school —at a time when tribal nations are finally able to take control over these schools. We explore the transformation into womanhood, yearning for family, confusion about whether the residential school is good or bad, and tumultuous relationships to authority, friends, and lovers.

Little Ones examines the evolution of the slogan "Kill the Indian, Save the child" into a more contemporary, ostensibly benevolent version: "Save the Indian, Save them from themselves."

Little Ones serves as a tribute to the challenges young people faced during the final decade of the US residential school era. The opera paints a picture of the struggles of any person conflicted with their place in American society while preserving their individual identity, all within a world undergoing profound change.

“The kids in this story have unique histories and cultures from which they originate, in their mad crushes and half grown-up/half immature antics and actions they could yet be kids from anywhere. This is incredibly fascinating storytelling, told from a unique perspective. The titanic emotions of teenagers in love, especially from these cultures and in this setting—what more fitting topic could there be for the unique vehicle that is opera?” —Oregon Arts Watch

Musical Forces

Voices:

2 Indigenous Mezzos

1 Indigenous Soprano

1 Indigenous Tenor

1 Indigenous Baritone

1 non-Indigenous soprano (coloratura)

1non-Indigenous Baritone

Optional Chorus

Orchestra:

String quintet

Flute, Clarinet/Bass Clarinet, Trombone

Piano

Percussion (vibraphone, bass drum, basic drum set, shakers, Tamborine, North American Indigenous frame drums (10inch, 12inch, 14inch), wood blocks, water, crotales (5, c, d, e, f, g))

Instrumentation can be expanded to fit larger pits.

Creative Team

  • Rhiana Yazzie is a 2025 United States Artist Fellow. She is also a Lanford Wilson and Steinberg Award winning playwright, a director, and filmmaker. A Navajo Nation citizen (Ta’neeszahnii dóó Táchii’nii), she is the Artistic Director of New Native Theatre, which she started in 2009 as a response to the lack of connection and professional opportunities between Twin Cities theaters and the Native community; it is the recipient of a 2023 Headwaters Bush Prize for social justice.

    Rhiana has been a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow and was recognized with a Sally Ordway Award for Vision. She’s been a Playwrights’ Center Fellow multiple times (Jerome Fellowship 2006 & 2010; McKnight Fellow 2016; Core Writer) and last year she made her East Coast premiere with Nancy (2023 Kilroys) at Mosaic Theater Company. Nancy is the second play in a series about Pocahontas and her family, originally co-commissioned by The Public Theater and The Oregon Shakespeare Festival for the American Revolutions: United States History Cycle.

    Rhiana’s newest play, The Nut, The Hermit, The Crow, and The Monk debuted in April 2025 at New Native Theatre closing its 15th Anniversary Season. In February 2025, she was the first Native American to write and direct a play, The Other Children of the Sun, for The Kennedy Center and is currently writing plays for Long Wharf Theatre & Rattlestick Theater (co-commission), DC’s Solas Nua & Ireland’s Fishamble theaters, and the University of New Mexico.

    In 2023, she directed the US premiere of Missing at the Anchorage Opera and is now working on her first libretto, Little Ones with Anishinaabe composer & conductor, Danielle Jagelski commissioned by Renegade Opera. They are recipients of the Opera America IDEA grant.

    She wrote, produced, and directed her debut feature film A Winter Love, currently seen in mainstream and Indigenous film festivals globally. It’s garnered laurels for Best Narrative Feature at the Minnesota Film Festival, Best Feature Film & Best Actress at the Weengushk International Film Festival, Achievement in Directing at the LA Skins Festival, Nominated for Best Feature, Best Director, and Best Actress & Actors at the American Indian Film Festival among other recognitions.

    She is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Masters of Professional Writing where she produced events featuring Stephen Hawking, Herbie Hancock, and Spalding Gray. Rhiana wrote on AMC’s Dark Winds seasons 2 & 3 and is working on her second feature film, A College Education with co-sceenwriter, playwright, Alex Hesbrook Remier (Chayenne River Lakota).

  • Danielle is the Artistic Director of Renegade Opera, Producer for First Nations Performing Arts, Co-Founder of Simmer Arts, and Manhattan School of Music Pre-College faculty. An avid composer of song, chamber, solo, and choral works, Danielle’s music has been performed throughout North America including at notable venues such as Performance Space New York, Roulette Intermedium, Green Room 42, and The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

    As an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe, Danielle often collaborates with other Indigenous artists in multidisciplinary creative projects in order to sustain and further the visibility of Indigenous peoples in the contemporary arts realm. Danielle is a fierce advocate for equity in musical spaces, and has presented her research on Indigenous classical music, Decolonization, and kinship building practices throughout the country.

    Recent commissions and collaborations have been with Voices of Ascension|Voices of the New, New Native Theatre, North American Indigenous Songbook and Timothy Long, Boston Opera Collaborative, Colleen Bernstein- Percussionist, MUSE Cincinnati Women's Choir, Hear Us Hear Them, and the Sister Singers Network. Upcoming premieres are “Holy Ground” for 5 voices and percussion by Voices of Ascension, “The Song My Paddle Sings” by the Sister Singers Network, and “Shadow River” for the North American Indigenous Songbook, along with her first opera with playwright/librettist Rhiana Yazzie, “Little Ones”. She is a recipient of grants and fellowships from Opera America, The Plimpton Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and Native Arts and Cultures, as well as earning a distinction award from the National Opera Association.

    Sought out for her execution of contemporary opera-theatre works as a conductor, recent conducting engagements include NEXTGen3 with Beth Morrison Projects, Missing by Brian Current at Anchorage Opera, Scalia/Ginburg at Opera Ithaca, the US premieres of Never to Return by Karen Sunabacka, Adam’s Run by Ruby Fulton, Dark Sisters by Nico Muhly, among others. Upcoming conducting engagements include Lingít Opera at Perseverance Theatre, Scalia/Ginsburg at Raylynmor Opera, and Waking the Witch by Ashi Day.

    Danielle is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Indigenous Media Guild, Girls Who Conduct, and has been the recipient of grants from Opera America, Oregon Community Foundation, The Plimpton Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts , and Native Arts and Cultures . She was granted 2nd place in the 2023 National Opera Association Awards for her work on Dark Sisters and was resident artist at Berkeley Repertory Theatre for the Ground Floor Summer Residency in 2024.