Here’s a journey that starts 100 years ago: “A remarkable centennial few are paying attention to is the premiere of the first meaningful American opera to have any real national success: The Metropolitan Opera’s production of Charles Wakefield Cadman’s ‘Shanewis (or The Robin Woman).’ The 1918 opera is about a Native American singer who leaves her reservation in Oklahoma to study voice with a Santa Monica socialite at a ‘bungalow by the sea’ (I’m not making this up).”