The Indian Picture Opera is a magic lantern slide show created by photographer Edward S. Curtis in the early 20th century. Curtis is best known for his work documenting Native American tribes through his 20-volume book series, The North American Indian, which featured around 2,400 photographs along with detailed ethnological and linguistic studies of the tribes of the American West.^[1]

In 1911, Curtis developed The Indian Picture Opera as a promotional tool to increase sales of his book series. The travelling slide show used a Stereopticon projector to display Curtis’s photographs on large screens in major American cities. The show featured a live soundtrack performed by a small orchestra, which played music inspired by Native American chants and rhythms. Curtis himself narrated the show, providing commentary on the images and sharing stories about the tribal communities he had documented.^[2]

The Indian Picture Opera was most successful in New York, where it was reviewed by various papers. The Evening World, an evening edition of The New York World, for example, is quoted as saying that the audience "taxed the capacity of the auditorium" and was "lifted out of prosaic into the wild, romantic life" of Native Americans from "the first pictures with barbaric, colorful musical setting to the last example of Mr. Curtis's photographic art". Another New York newspaper, The New-York Tribune, talked in a more informative context, saying that the opera was a "decided addition to the authoritative information the present generation has of the race found on the continent"^[2]

The show was described widely as a box office hit and highly entertaining for the audience. Despite the fairly positive reviews by the newspapers, the 1911-1912 and 1912-1913 tours were unprofitable due to the costs associated with travelling the country with a show of their size and fees to be paid along the way such as payments to the venue owners, transport for the orchestra crew, food and supplies, advertising etc. and was discontinued shortly after the company bankrolling Curtis' endeavours went out of business.^[2]

Curtis documented the Natives of the continent, especially the west, as he thought it was important to document the "vanishing race". Like the majority of Americans back then, Curtis thought that the Natives will eventually be integrated into American society and their cultures, traditions and languages will be gone forever as more and more land was taken from them. ^[3]

He was facing financial problems due to the Panic of 1907 so as to continue his life's work, he would show the opera as a way to make money.

The opera would reenforce racial stereotypes associated with Natives due to Curtis's tendency to show them as a race entirely different from the white population so as to make them feel unique which led to many concluding them to be uncivilised compared to themselves.^[3]

Curtis’s influence extended beyond his lifetime, and his visual documentation of Native American tribes continues to be referenced in cultural and academic discussions. In 2006, a contemporary remake of The Indian Picture Opera was released on DVD. This version followed Curtis’s original script and music, reconstituted into a modern multimedia format. The remake aimed to preserve Curtis’s original presentation while making it accessible to contemporary audiences.

Following the success of The Indian Picture Opera, Curtis went on to produce and direct In the Land of the Head Hunters in 1914, one of the first feature-length films to star an entirely Native American cast. This film further showcased his dedication to documenting Indigenous cultures, though it, too, faced criticism for its staged elements and fictionalised portrayals.

• The Indian Picture Opera Archived 2019-09-21 at the Wayback Machine Pictures and words by Edward S. Curtis, newly recreated on DVD
• Magic Lantern Society of the United States & Canada