“The Righteous” featured in the Wall Street Journal’s Arts Calendar

The Wall Street Journal selected this weekend’s premiere of The Righteous, a new piece presented by Santa Fe Opera, as one of its highly selective arts calendar picks for the week.

The Righteous was created by two of America's most exciting talents, composer Gregory Spears (Fellow Travelers, O Columbia, Paul's Case and A New Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei) and librettist Tracy K. Smith (To Free the Captives, Life on Mars, Ordinary Life: A Memoir and Such Color: New and Selected Poems), who is a former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner.

The opera explores the intersection between genuine faith and political power in the American Southwest of the 1980s. Along the way, the characters’ sacred love for God becomes entwined with the complicated realities of their romantic lives. This is the second operatic collaboration between Spears and Smith, whose Castor and Patience, from 2022, was nominated for Best World Premiere at the International Opera Awards.

Six performances are scheduled: July 13, 17, 26, 30; and August 7 and 13, 2024.