Hammersley Fund for the Arts at the Albuquerque Community Foundation and the New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund 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.

THIS TIME, ON COLORES!

TRANSFORMING CREATIVE IDEAS INTO REALITY...

GOING BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE SANTA FE OPERA, "M. BUTTERFLY" LIBRETTIST DAVID HENRY HWANG, COMPOSER HUANG RUO, AND CONDUCTOR CAROLYN KUAN REVEAL THEIR CREATIVE PROCESS IN BRINGING THIS WORLD PREMIERE OPERA TO LIFE.

SET AGAINST THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF OPENING NIGHT FOR THE WORLD PREMIERE OF SANTA FE OPERA'S "M. BUTTERFLY," COMPOSER HUANG RUO CONSIDERS A FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION.

FOR GLASSBLOWER JAMES VELLA ITS ALL ABOUT PATIENCE, SKILL, DEDICATION AND OVERSIZED FLOWERS.

IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES!

LOVE HAS NO BOUNDARIES >>David Henry Hwang: I've spent my adult life in New York, and I live in Brooklyn.

And the shift of lands that comes when I arrive in Santa Fe- you look up and there are these sort of amazing things that the clouds are doing and the hills, and the mountains, and the geological forms around here.

You can spend just hours looking in any direction, finding something beautiful, finding something inspiring, and that a rare gift!

[AMBIENT SOUND] >>Carolyn Kuan: I'm not a director, but voice wise I think that's what you were doing.

And on the other hand Mark, you're- you should be over the top, right?

You're like "oh my god, that's so beautiful!

That's like the first time I've ever se this most amazing thing!"

[MUSIC] >>Carolyn Kuan: I think great art, asks questions and allows each audience to find the answers themselves.

[MUSIC] >>David Henry Hwang: The thing about opera is that it really allows the audience to suspend its disbelief.

[MUSIC] >>Huang Ruo: When I write opera, I often ask myself "Can music make a difference for those words?

Can music transform those words?"

There was this duet at the end of act one, Gallimard asks Song Liling, "are you my butterfly?"

and Song said [musically] "Yes, I'm your butterfly".

So you feel like the music is going up.

The butterfly just flying away, not coming in.

So it's a double meaning.

Yes she's saying, "I'm your butterfly" but it's a butterfly you can never catch and it's your illusional butterfly, it's not real.

So that is the magic of music.

>>Huang Ruo: Can you hear me?

>>Carolyn Kuan: Sure!

>>Huang Ruo: I just want to call in- [INAUDIBLE, 2:59] >>Carolyn Kuan: Yes.

Oh!

David's here, Hi!

>>David Henry Hwang: Hi!

>>Carolyn Kuan: Huang Ruo is on the computer.

>>David Henry Hwang: Hello!

>> Huang Ruo: Hi!

>>David Henry Hwang: It's such a thrill to be able to ente the world of the production.

>>Carolyn Kuan: We need the performance to still be as real and engaging as possible, so I don't want to lose that.

So even if you do sing softer it still needs to be light, right.

>>David Henry Hwang: The artists are finally gathered in person to begin making the thing that- if you're the writer you've only seen in your head.

>>Carolyn Kuan: So at this point does she already know this is a- ?

>>David Henry Hwang: I think she doesn't know- >>Carolyn Kuan: Okay- >>David Henry Hwang: I like the version where- I mean it's not clear in the text, >>Carolyn Kuan: Right!

>>David Henry Hwang: You can go either way.

>>Carolyn Kuan: Right.

>>David Henry Hwang: I kind of like the version where she gets, you know, recruited later.

>>Carolyn Kuan: I like that too.

>>David Henry Hwang: There's something actually more genuine and vulnerable in the scene.

>>Carolyn Kuan: So she really does have an attraction to him, though even at this point, isn't it?

Because otherwise she wouldn't invite him to come to the apartment.

>>David Henry Hwang: Yeah!

I like the version where, you know, it's not so cut and dry.

It's not only an assignment, you're not only manipulating >>Carolyn Kuan: I think the first thing I did when I opened the score was to just flip through it and I think the first thing that came to my mind was how many beautiful melodies there were.

[MUSIC] >>Carolyn Kuan: It's a fantastic, moving, beautiful piece of music.

With sounds that people probably will have never heard before.

There are a lot of surprises, there are a lot of places that just moves you and it brings you all the discovery and adventure.

It's like all in this two and a half hour journey that we take together.

Why wouldn't anyone want to go to M. Butterfly?

<laughing> [MUSIC] >>Huang Ruo: What I love about opera is the complexity, also the teamwork of everyone putting in 100 percent.

>>Carolyn Kuan: As a conductor, you know, I want to serve the composer.

So, in this case Huang Ruo is a friend.

I just want to bring his vision to life.

I also have been picking him up every day going to the rehearsal and coming back because he doesn't drive, so it's just been wonderful.

We finished the rehearsal, we get into the car, and we talk about the rehearsal, the music, what he's thinking, and this is why I love new music!

Because you can actually talk to the composer.

I mean imagine being able to talk to Mozart, being able to talk to Puccini, you know?

and here it is, Huang Ruo and I get to talk to him and we're also making music together!

So that's just absolutely exciting.

[MUSIC] >>Huang Ruo: To see all the characters come alive, to hear every sound in my mind.

Every word in my mind, for the past five to seven years, comes out from the characters to fill in the space and time.

[MUSIC] It's undescribable, that feeling.

There's nothing that could replace that, and that first time- first note, when it sounds- and that's why I love opera so much, I love to create it just for that moment, everything's worth it.

[MUSIC] >>Carolyn Kuan: One of the amazing things about the story is that you don't know is someone is amended until the very end.

So the very first time you hear Song Liling and she is singing the Puccini Aria, you assume she's a soprano, except for the sound of a countertenor is very different from the soprano.

It has that- it just has a very different quality that just draws you in, and right away I think that is a pivotal moment in the opera of asking questions.

[MUSIC] >>Huang Ruo: When people often say opera is about love and death, in that order.

In M. Butterfly we also had that.

[MUSIC] The love to me- it was ambiguous.

Which I think is the beauty of this opera and for example in the scene when the church asked Song Liling "how did you do it?"

and did he really know you are a man or not?

and Song says that "I never asked".

So, I think that degree of mutual understanding and maybe Gallimard knew, and maybe he didn't, but in love that is irrelevant.

When you love someone, you can ignore all the flaws.

All the reality, you want to give yourself in that illusion, that surrealistic, imaginary story, you came up with or you see.

So, I think people say love is blind for that reason.

And I think in M. Butterfly, there's a lot of that kind of blindness, but not because people don't see it, but they chose not to see it.

>>David Henry Hwang: When I feel like I am getting closer the truth of a story, a character, or life.

We come into this world, we don't know very much, we learn about how to move through this world, and there's still so many things that we don't understand.

When art-and whether it's watching a piece of art, or creating a piece of art, when it can give us new insights into ourselves and the world around us that makes my heart beat faster.

THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE >>Huang Ruo: Opera in a way is like a mirror, reflecting on the world we live in and reflecting on who we are.

[THUNDER] [TALKING] A story like M. Butterfly has so many layers.

To me the fundamental question I ask myself is definitely, "We are not canceling Madama Butterfly or Puccini".

Madama Butterfly was written in a particular period of time, in history and he did try his best to- incorporate what he thought was to grow Oriental.

So, the best we can do is to create a new opera called M. Butterfly, to reverse the plaque, to reverse the story, to update it, and in a way to make Madama Butterfly relevant- as a history as a historical opera.

And then to pair it with M. Butterfly, so both of them could exist in the repertoire to be relevant together.

I think if we don't know Madama Butterfly's story, in a way M. Butterfly would be less relevant, because we have that piece of History.

We know how Asian women were treated unfairly in that story, or with a western lens.

If we did not know that- did not have that, the spin-off of M. Butterfly might not be as meaningful and as powerful.

The history is important, for example we had this very- racist act called "Chinese Exclusion Act".

You know it was signed into law in 1883.

If that law did not exist, then we would not know the Asian American struggle in this country, and even up to today we still see traces and bits of the after effects of that act.

[MUSIC] [CHATTER] >>Huang Ruo: - but then we can say "oh!

we erased that part of History.

", to deny that that did not exist.

We cannot do that, we cannot cancel that, because that is what makes this journey this way.

So, we need to confront that.

We need to face it.

Only when we acknowledge and see the old and see through it, see inside, see the issues, and problem with it.

Then we can truly confront it and know what we should do.

[MUSIC] >>Huang Ruo: People often say "the past is the present and the present is the future".

I can't see too far, but I can see the present.

Where we are creating opera that is by artists of color.

Stories that are about our own people, and I think that is the future of opera.

That is no longer just eurocentric and uh- story just one-sided, or one point of view, and so we are making history here and also we are making the future.

A HANDMADE TRADITION Blowing glass is one of the oldest art forms in the world.

The coolest thing about it for me is that if you took 16th century Italian Master, and brought them into my studio today, he would recognize every single tool, and every single piece of equipment.

That's how little it's changed throughout the years without, with the exception of technology.

With the exception of better combustibility from higher heats and easier ways to heat things up, the art form hasn't changed in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.

And to me, that's one of the most embracing aspects of it is like you're carrying on a handmade tradition, though is rare, has been around forever.

I started out as a wildlife painter.

I went to college 100% as a football player.

Throughout my life, I learned how I had a strong appreciation for art.

But I also found a love for painting and drawing.

And when I was in college playing football I was forced to find ways to get good grades because I couldn't study as much.

I had a lot of responsibilities towards football that took me away from academia.

So I took advantage of the fact that I was a good painter and could draw and I enrolled in painting classes.

So my undergraduate work at Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska was in wildlife painting.

Below my painting studio was the hot glass studio.

And I'm like, wow, man, they're listening to music.

They're working as a team.

It's hot as heck down there.

They're sweating.

They're using every muscle in their body; muscles they never thought they would ever have to use in their lives.

And when they're done with the piece, man, we got high fives, we got hugged, hey, we can do better next time.

And I was like, Oh, dear god, that's football, in art.

And I was like, I've hit the jackpot here.

So I started learning glass.

And the thing about glasses, is that it's so difficult to do.

And it's so difficult to learn.

It takes so much practice and dedication and like reading a book, I've been practicing that, those kinds of disciplines my whole life in sports.

And I was like, wow, this is an emergence of two things that I love more than anything.

And I'm going to embrace this and make it my life.

I was very fortunate to have a lot of mentors who really pounded that down my throat was; use your skills to make art.

Don't use your skills to show everyone what your skills are.

I really take that to heart.

Full circle to the beginning of the story, as I started sculpting more and more, I had the same passions for representing nature, in my class.

And that started with fish, and birds, and Louisiana seafood was just like perfect for me, then that evolved into my love for gardening.

And, I can represent that in glass as well.

I'm probably most known for my rather large oversized flowers, mostly Orchids.

And, and I've kind of just stayed in that, that kind of a realm of, o nature and beauty for the sake of beauty and nature for the sake of nature.

The technical aspects of the birds.

It's pretty straightforward.

We blow a little bubble, which would be the body of the bird.

We sift on the color, rather painterly fashion.

And then the wings and the beaks and the eyes; those are all added separately.

I like to put the bit of glass i and then I will sculpt the glass into what I want.

Two things are really important to me; mouth and eyes.

On almost any living thing that I would ever sculpt, I personally believe that the mouth and the eyes are the two most important characteristics that you have to portray.

Color and shape are obviously important.

But mouth and eyes.

The mouth shows you how this fish eats.

Mouth shows the type of fish that it is.

The eyes show you that it's a predator.

So when you make them in a movement that represents them hunting or looking for prey or food, it makes them look more realistic.

We're doing it all hot.

So hot glass sticks to hot glass perfectly.

And so once you get the body figured out, you put the wings on.

You add the wings, hot, pinch them out, you pull them, you sculpt them into a good wing, and you lay them down on the side, do the other wing.

Same with the beak, same with the eyes.

We use a lot of tools that give us the best control of the glass we can get without burning ourselves.

These two fingers are the closest that we come to the glass on a daily basis.

Almost anything that we could ever make uses these two fingers.

We have a furnace that holds about 500 pounds of molten glass.

That stays at about 2,160 degrees, pretty much always.

It runs 24 Hours a day, 7 days a week.

We used to buy the raw materials to make glass and then melt them ourselves.

we would turn what looked like maybe rock salt crystals of all the chemicals that went into making good glass, we put it in our furnace, we heated up to 2400 degrees, cook it overnight, and the next morning while we had molten glass.

Nowadays, most people buy glass that has already been melted, and it comes in little medallion form we call cullet.

And that's what we load our furnace with, it takes far less energy to melt.

We have solid rods, where we can just scoop the glass out of this furnace, about the consistency of honey.

And we can scoop it onto a solid rod and we can sculpt that glass just as a sculptural material solid.

Or we can gather it up on what's called a blow pipe.

And the blowpipe is hollow.

And that allows us to put a bubble and then create a hollow form bowls, plates, vases of that nature.

This also allows you to sculpt a bubble.

You can have solid sculpting or you can have blown sculpting where you blow the hollow bubble inside of the molten glass.

And then you can sculpt that glass into whatever shapes you need.

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"UNTIL NEXT WEEK, THANK YOU FOR WATCHING."

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