Now it seems impossibly old hat, with characters breaking off from the action to engage in long-winded speeches while gazing off at the horizon. Grey's first big seller made quite an impact in 1912, filled with then-gritty realism and wild vistas, but tempered by Grey's poetic turn of phrase. THE SAGE isn't the only thing purple in Zane Grey's standard-setting Western adventure, The Riders of the Purple Sage. Audiences responded passionately to a new work in English about the American frontier.Steely-eyed Stranger: Ed Harris takes on the hero's role in "The Riders of the Purple Sage." The risk was immense and the reviews were unanimous. Arizona Opera is a 46 year-old opera company that took a shot at adding its voice to the 500 year-old art form. Those 84 performers are backed by a small army of stage hands, props and make up artists, artisans from the costume and scenic shops.as well as the artistic team, designers, coaches, and staff it takes to mount a new work. "Riders of the Purple Sage" is performed by seven principal singers, a chorus of 16 men, seven supernumeraries, 53 musicians, and one conductor. Five years later a new adaptation of a beloved Western celebrated its world premiere as a fully staged grand opera. In 2012 Craig Bohmler discovered Zane Grey's most famous work when he ducked into the Zane Grey Cabin in Payson, Arizona to escape a thunderstorm. The opera "Riders of the Purple Sage" marks an unprecedented collaboration between the work of Zane Grey, celebrated American composer Craig Bohmler, librettist Steven Mark Kohn, and Arizona's "visual poet laureate," painter Ed Mell. Now, for the first time, Zane Grey’s work is being adapted for the live stage in the grandest way possible: as an Opera. Over the past century the novel "Riders of the Purple Sage" has been translated into 20 languages, made into five Hollywood movies, and ranks on the Library of Congress list of "One Hundred Books that Shaped America". Add to the story an outlaw bent on vengeance, young lovers hidden in a desert Eden, rustlers and a stampede, and you have the bedrock of an entire genre. The book's polygamist antagonists played their roles against a "patriarchy-smashing heroine", the devout Jane Withersteen, creating a clear conflict between two views of religion. When the novel was first published in 1912, "Riders of the Purple Sage" was met with fascination and criticism for its harsh characterization of Mormons. With his signature mix of action and romance, Grey's books inspired hundreds of Hollywood movies and "golden era" TV shows, and helped establish a distinctly American art form, the Western. Zane Grey's writing transformed the history of the frontier into the mythic territory of the West. A lone gunman silhouetted against the sky, a rancher fighting to save her land, a stampede, a shoot out, and a feared masked rider. These classic frontier themes were made legendary by author Zane Grey.
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