Arizona Opera stages 'Dead Man Walking,' 'Purple Sage'

While Arizona Opera often stages many crowd favorites, it goes off the beaten trail this season with two operatic adapations from popular culture.

Arizona Opera will preform Dead Man Walking (based on the Susan Sarandon film about capital punishment) and its first world-premiere production of Riders of the Purple Sage (based on the classic Western novel by Zane Grey and written by Arizona composer Craig Bohmler).

These performances are part of a new initiative dubbed "Arizona Bold" which aims to bring new stories to the opera stage that are relevant to the company's statewide audience.