rustlers and themes that resonate today — women’s rights, religious fundamentalism, vigilante justice, the search for home — the novel has sold more than 2 million copies and been adapted to film five times, last in 1996. Arizona Opera heard about Bohmler’s project and called to inquire about it. He went to their office and dropped off what he had — his treatment, a bit of the act one libretto and one recorded aria — with a self-effacing Post-It saying, “It’s not very much.” “They called me back to have a meeting and I thought it would just be one-on-one, but it was the whole staff sitting around the table,” Bohmler said. He could almost hear the hoofbeats in the distance. ENTER KRISTIN ATWELL FORD, a documentary filmmaker and Arizona native who was fresh off her Emmy win for SRP’s film about Roosevelt Dam. Bohmler took her to dinner in 2012 and told her about his new project. “While he’s telling me this story, my vision fills with Ed Mell’s artwork. I can’t even say it was an idea; it was precognitive,” Atwell said. “Mell is my favorite living painter. I used to go to his shows and get the program to cut out and put up. That was where my Ed Mell collection started.” She gave Bohmler a copy of a book on Mell, “Beyond the Visible Terrain,” and Bohmler immediately saw it, too. This was the missing character in his show: the landscape that the characters are forged against. Internationally known, heavily collected, and the subject of books and articles in major art publications, HOPING JUST TO LICENSE SOME OF MELL’S IMAGES FOR THE OPERA, BOHMLER AND ATWELL EXPLAINED HOW THEY FELT HIS SHIMMERING SKIES, TRANSLUCENT CLOUDS AND ARCHITECTURALLY INSPIRED BUTTES WOULD MAKE THE PERFECT BACKDROP FOR THE STORY.

Ed Mell is a Phoenix native whose work portrays the strength and majesty of the American West. Although he’s best known for his paintings, Mell is also well regarded for his sculptures, such as Jack Knife , the perilously perched cowboy riding a bronco in Old Town Scottsdale. In other words, he’s an art world rock star. Now, Bohmler and Atwell were conspiring to bring their expanded vision to life. Atwell wrangled her Rolodex to get a meeting with Mell. Like starstruck teenagers, she and Bohmler headed for the Coronado District to Mell’s studio in a former grocery store he converted decades ago. “Craig and I went there like, ‘We get to meet Ed Mell!’” Atwell said. “Make no mistake. It’s like getting to work with the Beatles to work with Ed. It’s a big deal.” Hoping just to license some of Mell’s images for the opera, Bohmler and Atwell explained how they felt his shimmering skies, translucent clouds and architecturally inspired buttes would make the perfect backdrop for the story. “Who’s doing your hard sets?” he asked. “You know, I’ve always wanted to design for the stage.” Happily, the fortuitous meeting was memorialized thanks to Atwell, who had decided that the making of this new opera would be the subject of her next documentary film. Since the time Bohmler told her about his project, it stuck in Atwell’s imagination. “How do you make an opera?” she asked. “Because it’s this huge, complex art form that encompasses all of these other disciplines.” Atwell’s full-length film, Riders of the Purple Sage: The Making of a Western Opera , follows Zane Grey’s experiences writing the novel and portrays how artists came together a century later to re-tell that classic story in a modern live performance using music, visual art and the human voice. BOHMLER PROVIDED THE OPERATIC MUSIC, of course, a lush score reminiscent of Hollywood Westerns. And in 2013, Mell came on board as scenic designer, an opportunity he welcomed with open arms. “Artists throughout history have designed stage settings for operas and plays, so I kind of figured this was one of those things that I should jump at,” he said. “I always thought I’d love to do a stamp and then the Arizona Centennial stamp just kind of fell in my lap. And my bronze in Scottsdale — AUGUST 2019 | FRONTDOORS MEDIA 25