"RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE: THE MAKING OF A WESTERN OPERA" Coming to DVD & VOD November 8th

"The film is as powerful and evocative in its own way as the piece it reveres and celebrates."
- Herb Paine, Broadway World

Riders of the Purple Sage: The Making of a Western Opera follows a classically trained composer as he adapts a dime novel masterpiece into a grand opera. In 1912, Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage flew off bookshelves around the world and today is recognized by the Library of Congress as “One Hundred Books that Shaped America.”

A century later, composer Craig Bohmler takes shelter in Zane Grey’s cabin during a rainstorm. There, amidst posters from Grey’s Hollywood Westerns, Bohmler discovers a story with the grand dimensions of opera; he decides then and there to mount the legendary frontier novel for the operatic stage. Alongside a team of designers, musicians, singers, and fine art painter Ed Mell, Bohmler translates America’s cowboy culture and sprawling beauty of the West into the realm of Puccini and Verdi.

Credits

DIRECTOR/PRODUCER
Kristin Atwell Ford

PRODUCED BY
Quantum Leap Productions in collaboration with Arizona Opera

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Billie Jo & Judd Herberger, J. Scott Hooker

ZANE GREY READ BY
Peter Coyote

FEATURING
Ed Mell, Craig Bohmler, Fenlon Lamb, Steven Mark Kohn, Joseph Mechavich,
Keitaro Harada, Karin Wolverton, Morgan Smith, Laura Wilde, Joshua Jeremiah,
Joshua Dennis, Keith Phares

CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Jennifer E. & Charles F. Sands, Dr. Arlyn & Dr. Rex Brewster

CO-PRODUCERS
Marcia & Hugh Ruddock

Director's Bio - Kristin Atwell Ford

Filmmaker Kristin Atwell Ford celebrates the alchemy of people and place. Castle Hot Springs: Oasis of Time; Protecting the Source, about fire, forests, and water in the American West; and Theodore Roosevelt Dam: Arizona’s Living Legacy are all Rocky Mountain EMMY® Award winners. Her new film, The Weight of a Feather, produced with Quantum Leap Productions, explores the deep relationship between wildlife, feathers, and indigenous cultural identity. Kristin has been honored to film on the lands of the Yavapai, Navajo, Hopi, Maricopa, and Apache People. She sits on the Western Council Member of the Entertainment Community Fund and is the proud recipient of the 2021 Arizona Governor’s Arts Award.