Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation.

.New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

and Viewers Like You.

LIBRETTIST TRACY K. SMITH AND COMPOSER GREGORY SPEARS DISCUSS THE WORLD PREMIERE OF "THE RIGHTEOUS" AT THE SANTA FE OPERA.

"THE RIGHTEOUS" IS AN EXPLORATION OF FAITH, POWER, AND AMBITION SET AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF THE 1980S AMERICAN SOUTHWEST.

UNCOVERING SURPRISING LOCAL HISTORIES, HISTORIAN AND AUTHOR BRAD BERTELLI SHARES HIS JOURNEY FROM FICTION WRITER TO FLORIDA KEYS HISTORIAN.

CREATING UNIQUE, MEANINGFUL PIECES THAT REFLECT THEIR WAY OF LIFE, ARTISTS SANDY AND JOE SHARE THEIR JOURNEY FROM ART SCHOOL TO RUNNING A CERAMICS BUSINESS.

IT'S ALL AHEAD ON ¡COLORES!

CRYING OUT >> Faith Perez: The righteous is incredibly rich in themes of love, betrayal and political intrigue spanning over decades.

So, what inspired you to really explore those themes and that particular time period?

>> Tracy Smith: Often times I find that when I'm worried about circumstances in the present, I turned to history to try and say, "okay, how did this begin?

Or, "how has this been dealt with in the past?"

And so, I think turning to the 1980s was a way of saying there's so many forces of division in our civil discourse, so much mistrust that has been amplified over the last several years between neighbors, between people who, you know, have much in common and in some ways those conflicts begin to claim vocabularies that we still use or that we might recognize in the 80s and so it felt like a really fruitful starting point both in terms of the distance from the present discomfort or questioning that might allow for a little bit more perspective, a little bit more insight than what's in our laps at the moment in a way that fosters a kind of hope perhaps.

>> Faith Perez: So, how did you incorporate the cultural and historical context of the late '70s and ' 80s American Southwest into the narrative and what significance does that hold for the character's experience?

>> Tracy Smith: Really, the meat of the 80s for me feels like questions of oil, natural resources, fossil fuels as a driver of the American economy and a sense of prosperity that Americans were claiming and really getting behind.

Even while understanding that it was fraught, you know, geopolitical dynamics had great bearing upon, you know, gas prices and gas availability at that time.

We move into the beginning of the vocabulary of women's liberation, women thinking about the role that they've been made to play in institutions like the church or the family and beginning to recognize that there's an opportunity to push back against that, that might get traction in ways that are different from history and of course the AIDS crisis.

It's a huge part of that legacy and one of our characters, Jonathan, is closeted for most of the people in his life but he's beginning to recognize the desire to go out and live in the world as a gay man amidst this crisis where to claim that identity is also to step into a kind of peril.

It's also a moment where we see organized religion moving into the political sphere and having great influence and these are all things that feel like we are, we're still grappling with the implications of that and the machinations of that.

So, it feels like there's probably more that we have in common with the 80s for better and worse than with other decades that we might have turned to.

>> Faith Perez: So, Greg, how will the production depict what's happening around these characters?

>> Gregory Spears: So, we're collaborating with a wonderful director Kevin Newbury who we actually worked together with, Tracy and I, on our first opera Castor and Patience and so what's great about that is the three of us have a shared vocabulary for you know, building a world on stage and one of the things that Kevin really likes and that Tracy and I really like are creating multiple scenes so sometimes something will be happen on the left side of the stage and it's a totally different scene on the right so there's this kind of counter point with these different storylines rather than just going linearly through the piece.

You know, religion and the divine and faith play a huge role in the world and so Kevin has thought a lot about how to depict that on stage.

Lighting is very important, the landscape around the theater is very important to try to somehow visually depict the kind of inner sort of religious life of these characters on stage both in a private setting as well as in larger group settings.

So, I think the all the sort of theatrical techniques Kevin's really thought about how to again create a sort of counter point that then builds upon the counter point between music and words that Tracy and I have been building.

>> Faith Perez: So, Tracy, how did you ensure that sensitive topics like abuse, betrayal and political ambition were handled with depth and sensitivity especially considering the impact they had on the characters?

>> Tracy Smith: There's the really powerful effect of the aria as a device or a mode which allows the interior space of a character to fill the theater.

There's this miraculous effect whereby as an audience member you feel like you're alone with that character as well and I think that dynamic creates a really powerful sight of attention.

I think it also opens up a space within an ideal viewer where part of your own life that might rhyme, in a way, with what the characters are expressing or experiencing, gets awakened or called to attention and it's not a mode we live in you know, we live in a space where we're encouraged to debate, to stand our ground, to argue and dismiss and so if an artistic mode can open up this other kind of respectful submission to another person's story, I feel like it's not just good for like the dramatic experience of being in a theater and listening to an opera, but it's also really nourishing something that I think we need in our civic life.

So, I'm really excited about the ground we'll kind of tread into together.

>> Faith Perez: So, Greg can you talk to us about your writing style and the vehicle you used to write the arias in this Opera?

>> Gregory Spears: Sure, so, central to the piece is the aria where you have one person speaking, could be five to seven minutes, maybe they're telling a story, maybe it's a prayer where you really have this kind of paradoxical world of the private and the public meeting.

You're in a very public place.

You have thousands of people watching one person on stage inviting you into their world and I'm really interested in trying to use that in this piece because so much of this is about these internal spiritual journeys and so bringing those two things together which are very contradictory in some ways but trying to fit them together hopefully creates a kind of activated musical world where a lot of different types and modes of expression are possible in order to tell this story that passes between these moments of introspection and dialogue with forces greater than us.

So, to be able to go back and forth like that, I think is something that I think opera does really well in that is a really a big part of what I try to do as a composer.

>> Faith Perez: So, can you talk about David's growth and why you chose to give him a psalm like aria to end the show?

>> Gregory Spears: So, we start with a chorus and then David sings a prayer that is we think of them as a Psalm and then so we hear sort of David's internal monologue early in a Psalm and then we get that again at the end and they're very different.

The first one is very much a sort of contemplative prayer to God and he says, "God my first love" and there's something very youthful about this first aria, hopeful and then David goes on this journey where he begins to act in the world and things get complicated and his romantic life becomes complicated and so we return at the end to another prayer and it's a very different prayer in a way, it's a prayer of humility, embracing a certain kind of uncertainty.

He's set kind of at a crossroads in his life and so I think we, in a way because of the symmetry of the peace, we can kind of measure how far we've come with all the characters.

So, yeah, I like returning to the villain El form at the end to kind of check in with him and see what a journey he's been on.

>> Tracy Smith: There's something about this Psalm or you know the forms of prayer you mentioned that it's hopeful in the beginning I also feel like there's something about the mode of prayer that is always innocent no matter from what circumstances that desire to talk to God or make a plea emerges, it's coming from a place that no matter what else you've done still retains the hope of possibility, of you know, maybe it's forgiveness or maybe it's just the willingness to kind of stand bare in yourself and I feel like it's really exciting to see these characters come back to a place like that after the complexities, as you said, of their lives and their choices.

>> Gregory Spears: I love that there's a kind of Innocence there's a kind of earnestness about it, it's very much it feels like a gift to be able to watch that and I think that transcends into what singers do in general there's something very inherently generous about crying out you know with poetry and music out to an audience.

>> Faith Perez: And what do you hope audiences will take away from experiencing The Righteous?

>> Tracy Smith: I love the practice of dwelling in uncertainty, irresolution, that is a part of this work because it is a part of this world that we will return to and the desire for clear cut answers, clear definitions of what another person is and what they probably want or want from you.

I think those things feel appealing at times because they're easy and they seek to keep things in their place but I don't know, the further we get into the 21st century, it feels like that is a mythology that has run its course and so the ability to say, okay we're in the storm of it all, and there's a part of us that must become comfortable there, not to stand still and do nothing but to imagine what it might mean to move forward into something that feels stable because everyone is cared for.

>> Gregory Spears: I always feel when I write an opera I want people to come out and love opera and say, oh wow this is a powerful medium and it's different than theater, it's different than watching a film, there's something very real about opera.

It's these voices without amplification again crying out to you.

I would say I really hope that people say, oh yeah, that was an experience that I'll remember, and opera has something really spectacular to offer us.

Tracy Smith: So, this is the final aria that is sung collectively by the full chorus as well as initially by David.

Life is long and wisdom slow.

I thought I knew.

What did I know?

Joy arrives.

Joy goes.

Likewise, truth.

Life is long and wisdom slow.

If I was a seed, then oh, what was the soil in which I grew?

What do I know?

What is the heart?

Where the soul?

Once I knew.

Life is long.

Wisdom slow.

What is the heart?

Where the soul?

Am I the many or the few?

How will I know?

Oh, Lord, God, oh what did I mistake for you?

How will I know?

Life is long and wisdom slow.

A PAGE TURNER My name is Brad Bertelli and I am a local historian and author.

I'm a fiction writer by trade.

And I went to the University of Miami and got my MFA and graduated in 2001.

I moved down here to work on my novel, and I got a book deal with the University Press of Florida for 'A Sparkling Guide to Florida'.

And as I was doing research for this book, every dive captain and every mate had his own story about how this reef got its name or how that reef got its name.

And I got curious and started looking into the histories, the local histories, and got really intrigued with what was going on down here in the Florida Keys and the road forked and I kind of turned off my fiction tap and opened up the nonfiction.

And I've been working on nonfiction ever since.

And, and history and just the history down here is amazing.

And I was really taken in by it.

And 20 years later, I'm a local historian.

I've done eight books total three, four, five, six, six and a half on history.

I count one.

I have a book called 'The Florida Keys Skunk Ape Files', which is it's fiction, but there is historical fiction.

But there is - the history is good, and I worked really hard on getting the history right.

But I did insert the Florida's Bigfoot, the skunk ape in with a lot of real people like John James Audubon and Ponce de Leon and Thomas Edison just to have a little fun.

I hadn't worked on fiction in 15 years, and I after writing so much history, I just wanted to have fun with words again and not have to worry about, you know, all the details.

People don't realize the stunning array of history that happened down here and it's so -- and I think learning -- it's all telling stories and writing fiction or writing history.

It's all how do you present the information so it's palatable.

And people who might not otherwise pick up a history book, you know, can get the information, absorb it, and hopefully be entertained.

My favorite Florida Keys story was always Indian Key, which is now in the Indian Key Historic State Park.

It's an amazing little island.

Millions of people have driven past it on the overseas highway and never even known this little mangrove, 11-acre mangrove island out in the Atlantic about a mile offshore between upper Matecumbe and Lower Matecumbe Key was once the most important island in the Florida Keys not named Key West.

And it was in the 1835.

It had a hotel and restaurants and a bowling alley, and it was a thriving, wrecking community.

My latest book, which I call 'Florida Keys History with Brad Martelli, Volume one.'

It's really helped me to define my voice, my history voice, so I can tell these stories, make them fun, get people interested.

And you know, if you can make history a page turner, that that's great.

And that's what I'm trying to do.

SEEING THE POTENTIAL People don't see exactly what you're seeing unless you go ahead and carry it through and that's what your job is as an artist is to bring that, what you're seeing, make it possible for other people to see it.

We met in art school, CCAD, started out in painting and drawings, I found clay, so I moved into that, and actually it's been this gradual sort of getting to where we are, it was just I guess a natural evolution, but we've always said being a goal is making our living as artisans.

I went to learn to paint and draw, I met Sandy and kind of hung out with her in the clay studio.

I was just sitting there talking, she was working.

I should have been at home doing homework or something.

When we decided to do this as a business, you know, it was hard.

It was a struggle.

You just make little tweaks constantly to see what is going to sell, what's going to keep us alive.

I never thought I would be doing functional ceramics when I was in school, but it's good living.

>> so many people say they don't see how you can work with your spouse, and we've never had any problem working together.

I think we've both grew up with that really deeply ingrained blue- collar kind of values of work.

I can't imagine not working.

I do love physical labor.

That's part of that whole experience of the 3-d visceral living and I think that, you know, for us we're not afraid of sweat.

We're not afraid of getting in the dirt and, you know, the exhausting hard work.

Raku is a traditional firing from Japan which actually came from Korea.

They usually take the pot out, red hot, and let it cool naturally or quench it.

They brought raku back from Japan and were playing with it and they were carrying a pot, they were carrying pots down to a creek, and somebody dropped one of them and they said, oh, just leave it and they kept going.

When they came back to it had smoldered in the leaves and dry stuff and got some lusters and some too things, so that's where the post-fire reduction came in.

It's pretty new to ceramics.

With the raku it's the temperature of the day, the humidity, the length of time it's in the kiln, how hot the kiln fired to and how long it takes to get from the kiln to the can.

Just every little thing can change and it's just so unpredictable.

You know, it's kind of cool that way.

You have to let things go.

You can't be-- you can't be perfect.

It might be, but you can't expect it to be, and you can never recreate the same thing twice.

And this is just what fits into our space and what we have.

>> the way we chose to live is the reason that we can do what we do, so it's so completely entwined.

It's a way of living.

You do what it takes-- it just kind of fits together.

You know, we are not big consumers, we're more likely to buy a piece of art probably than we are to go out and buy the latest and newest stuff, so we really consider that kind of thing.

There, again, the idea of pottery going into your life, it's meant to last you your life, it's not a throw away thing.

We make the clay and all the glazes.

It's from as scratch as you can get it.

>> our technique is slip trail, which is our clay dissolved to a liquid, put into a bottle with a needle tip and then drawn on to the surface of the clay.

So that gives it some texture and also holds the glaze where you put it.

It's technical for us for certain reasons, but also gives the user something to just hold on to, to caress, to feel, and it's usually something either pretty or funny.

I think that sets it apart a little bit.

And when we put handles on mugs, we try to make it a comfortable handle.

Since they are all handmade, they are all going to be different.

People come into a booth and just pick up mug after mug and go, oh, this is the one, it feels just right.

Maybe it might inspire them, maybe it will just be something that comforts them, something, yeah, just fun.

It's just such a joy to be able to pick something up and hold it and use it and appreciate it.

You know, we have-- people will come into a booth and say, oh, well, you know, I would buy this, but my mother is a potter and it's like, well, we have cupboards full of everybody else's pots and it's just so nice to have a different pot every morning to drink coffee out of.

Everyone feels different and it gives you a different feeling, different joy.

I feel like the hand of the person that made it makes it an individual piece, a piece of them kind of goes with it or a bit of their energy, their spirit.

Art for life is how we think about it.

The award-winning arts and culture series ¡COLORES!

is now available on the PBS App, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and at NMPBS.org.

From classic episodes to brand new shows, ¡COLORES!

is everywhere.

Watch now on your favorite NMPBS platforms.

Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation.

.New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

and Viewers Like You.