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A few months ago, inside her stall in a Mexico City market, Ofelia Contreras showed Monika Essen the intricate handwork on an indigenous Mexican skirt. She pointed out how many months it took to complete the patterns by hand.

Essen is the costume designer for the Michigan Opera Theatre's revival of the opera Frida, and came to Mexico City to get the look of the opera right, since Kahlo was so particular about her traditional wardrobe.

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In Detroit's Rivera And Kahlo Exhibit, A Portrait Of A Resilient City

"To really get the authentic quality that I think that we're looking for, for this production, I think it was imperative for me to come here and to actually get a sense of who Frida was, where she lived," Essen said.

But in 1932, Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera also lived in Detroit — where the current revival of the production overlaps with an exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit.

Opera For Everyone

To showcase the opera to a larger audience, excerpts will be performed for free outside the Detroit Opera House. Wayne Brown, the Michigan Opera Theatre's president and CEO, says it's important to show that opera isn't just a black-tie affair.

"Clearly, Frida Kahlo would have been very upset if everyone showed up in mink coats," Brown says.

So Frida is also being performed at venues throughout the city and southeast Michigan to attract young Latinos like Ricardo Barajas, who's seen ads for it on Facebook.

"I love anything that has to do with [a] real-life story that's reflected in Hispanic culture," says Barajas, who has also seen the Rivera murals at the museum. "I don't like just going on with my life and not knowing what my culture is."

Kahlo's own popularity as an artist will also attract audiences, says Colombian soprano Catalina Cuervo, who's playing Frida in the current production.

"This is the kind of opera where people go because, 'Oh, I love Frida!' 'Oh, there's a Colombian soprano? Oh no, I have to go.' 'Oh, she's hot, I'm going to go,' " Cuervo says.

Yes, this soprano is hot. In a promotional video on the opera's website, Cuervo looks fit and tan and wears a dress with a plunging neckline as she performs a monologue and sings.

At a local bakery in Detroit's Latino neighborhood, shopper Eloisa Perez said opera's boring, but shown some of the video of Cuervo on YouTube, she said with that soprano, men would go.

"Truth is, she sings beautifully. It would be really cool if people would go see it, and I think I'd be one of them," Perez said, in Spanish.

Honoring The Artists

The exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts has works by both artists in its collection, including Rivera's acclaimed "Detroit Industry" murals, about the city's manufacturing and its workers. It also has Kahlo's Henry Ford Hospital, a painful oil painting about her miscarriage there.

"The fact that she focused on her own pain and worked her way through it — I think it's really an inspiring story for anyone," says Migdalia Cruz, who wrote the lyrics and monologues for the opera. "If I did justice to how beautiful she made her own pain then I've accomplished something very special in writing the play."

The music for Frida was composed by Robert Xavier Rodriguez in 1991. He says he's especially happy the work is being revived in Detroit now, after the city overcame a difficult bankruptcy without having to break up the Art Institute's collection to pay its bills.

"It's a sign of good times, hopeful times, when the artists are supported and people recognize the beauty and wonder of art," Rodriguez says.

If nothing else, Soprano Catalina Cuervo hopes Latinos will see they can have a good time at an opera.

"This is fun and dramatic and they will love it, they will just be on the edge of their seats," she says. "Just like with the end of any, every telenovela."

After all, opera is often just a telenovela set to music.

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A few months ago, Craig Ferguson, host of The Late Late Show, interrogated a special guest: James Corden. When asked what he did for a living, Corden replied demurely, "I don't do anything at the moment."

That is set to change Monday night, when Corden succeeds Ferguson as the host of The Late Late Show.

He is 36 and English. Ferguson is Scottish: Score one for diversity.

Corden has won awards on screen and stage. He starred in the Broadway production of One Man, Two Guvnors, and won a Tony. And he played the best friend of Keira Knightley's character in last year's film Begin Again. But most Americans may know Corden for playing the Baker in the film version of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods.

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Corden won a Tony for his role as the comically overworked servant in One Man, Two Guvnors. Johan Persson/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Johan Persson/AP

Corden won a Tony for his role as the comically overworked servant in One Man, Two Guvnors.

Johan Persson/AP

James Corden has never worked as a talk show host, or a comedian. The topic of late night TV came up when he was in a meeting with American network executives about about a possible sitcom.

"I talked with Leslie Moonves, who's the CEO of CBS," Corden tells NPR's Scott Simon. "And we talked about late night and how I felt it could change, and perhaps be given a breath of fresh air, and then he offered me the job — it was very strange."

Late night TV is a crowded field right now. But Corden says he hopes that coming to the job new might bring in some fresh and untested ideas. "We have got to give it a reason to exist," he says. "It's not enough to rely on fact that there' always been a show. The fact that we're on after a talk show means we have to try and respect and honor the traditions of late night, but in so many ways try and make something that at least feels a little different to the show that's just been on."

Whatever changes he may introduce, the heart of late night remains the interview. Until now, James Corden has always been on the answering end of interviews. But his mother was a social worker, who talked with lots of people.

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"I think she would say that being a social worker is more about listening than it is about talking. And I'm sure you agree that's equally as important if you're going to interview people, it's not so much about the question you ask but more about listening to the answer and seeing where it goes after that."

And of course, late night TV is about humor, sometimes a little naughty and pointed. And, with James Corden, British. Craig Ferguson won a devoted audience. Piers Morgan, on CNN, was less successful. Some critics, including Tania Bryer of CNBC, wonder if Corden's British banter might fall flat with an American audience: "The worry is not so much will they understand him in terms of his accent, but it's the humor, will they get the humor?"

Corden himself isn't concerned about humor being lost in translation. "I had never been to New York but I absolutely loved Seinfeld. And I had never been to a bar in America, but I loved Cheers. And I've never been to a hotel in Torquay but I love Fawlty Towers. So of course there are going to be things which I can only really learn by making mistakes in doing them — about colloquialisms, or words in dialogue and things. But I don't know that it will come down to people people understanding my accent or my sense of humor."

If something is good, Corden says, it will travel. He begins his stint on The Late Late Show Monday night — or technically, is that Tuesday morning?

In Mexico, the problem of drug trafficking is well publicized, but you can't say the same when it comes to the problem of drug addiction.

While nowhere near the levels seen in the U.S., Mexico is battling a growing problem — in the past decade illicit drug use has grown by more than a third.

Tijuana's Drug Boom Reflects Mexico's New Problem

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While millions admit to using marijuana, cocaine and meth, addiction is not talked about openly, especially among the country's rich or famous, but one former champion boxer has set out to change the image of recovering addicts and rehabilitation.

Rise Out Of Poverty

In the 1980s and '90s, Julio Cesar Chavez was known for his strong chin, feared for his left hook and widely called one of the greatest "pound-for-pound" fighters of his era — and one of the greatest Mexican boxers of all time.

His rise to fame is truly a rags-to-riches story. He was one of 11 children, and his family was so poor for a time that they lived in an abandoned train caboose. His mother washed and ironed clothes for a living. Chavez says that he started fighting when he was 8 years old, and that he always dreamed of making enough money to buy her a home.

With six world titles in three weight divisions and more than 80 career knockouts, Chavez bought her the house and much more.

"I had it all — money, women, fame, cars, yachts, everything a man could want — but it didn't give my life meaning," says Chavez. "I felt nothing. So what did I do? The most stupidest thing I could."

He found refuge in drugs and alcohol.

'That's When The Failures Began, The Defeats'

In the living room of his home in Tijuana, Mexico, sitting in an overstuffed leather reclining chair, Chavez is surrounded by prizefighting photos and championship belts.

One of the framed pictures depicts what Chavez says was his most famous fight. It's a shot of him and Meldrick Taylor in the ring in 1990 in Las Vegas. Chavez had been trailing most of the fight, but with seconds left on the clock in the final round he landed a solid right and sent Taylor tumbling. The ref stopped the fight, giving Chavez the win.

Despite the dramatic victory, Chavez says that drinking and drugs soon began to get the best of him.

"At first I [could] control it, but I just needed more alcohol and more cocaine and more and more," he says. "That when the problems really started. That's when the failures began, the defeats."

Four years later, against Frankie Randall in Las Vegas, Chavez took a solid blow in the 11th round, getting knocked to the ground for the first time in his career.

Chavez would go on to lose five more fights before retiring in 2005. He says he spent many more years after that addicted. His marriage ended, some of his friendships were ruined and his health suffered.

Then four years ago, while at a doctor's office and anesthetized for a procedure for his ulcers, his son called an ambulance and took him, unconscious, to rehab.

"I woke up in the clinic in a room with the IV still in my arm, and I just ripped it out and started cussing at everyone," says Chavez.

But he stayed for nearly 6 months — and has been clean since.

An Anti-Addiction Ambassador

At 5-foot-7 and looking fit and trim, Chavez says addiction is not talked about openly in Mexico, and that the public is not forgiving of its fallen stars, and they suffer alone for fear of criticism. But that hasn't stopped him from telling his story, or from helping out addicts.

At Clinica Bajo del Sol in Tijuana, a rehab center Chavez opened, some 40 men and women, say a prayer before dinner. The spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean contrasts with the coils of barbed wire topping the entire facility's high brick walls.

Clinic psychologist Guillermo Rangel Mendoza says that Chavez frequently shares his story with the patients, which helps, but that the types of drugs taking off in Mexico in recent years — including meth, heroin and Ecstacy — weren't problems back in Chavez's days.

The surge in designer drug use here frightens Chavez. He recently opened another a clinic in Sinaloa, and says he wants to open at least two more as soon as possible.

Julio Cesar Chavez of Mexico stands in his corner after receiving a head butt from Frankie Randall in the eighth round of their 1994 WBC Super Lightweight Championship fight. The scheduled 12 round fight was stopped after the incident, and the judges awarded the fight to Chavez. John Gurzinski/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption John Gurzinski/AFP/Getty Images

He seems to be changing Mexico's perception of recovered addicts. Earlier this year, a 20-foot bronze statue of Chavez went up in the main square in his boyhood home of Culiacan, the capital of Sinoloa. He's now a regular analyst on ESPN en Espanol and on TV Azteca in Mexico. And President Enrique Pena Nieto dubbed him an anti-addiction ambassador at a recent conference on combating Mexico's growing drug problem.

"I felt excited, happy and proud," says Chavez about the recent accolades. "At the same time I feel the pressure, the commitment. I really have to stay clean now."

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Prison is perhaps the last place anyone would expect to learn about investing and money management.

But at San Quentin Prison, Curtis Carroll's class is a hot item. The 36-year-old has gained a reputation for his stock-picking prowess. He's even earned the nickname "Wall Street."

"You know, growing up in the neighborhood everything was always associated with white prosperity, black not."

- Curtis Carroll

Carroll and prison officials have teamed up to create a financial education class for inmates. He starts off the class with a motivational speech.

"Financial education for me has been a lifesaver," he says. "And I have always been passionate about trying to make money. The problem with that money is it was focused in the wrong area — crime."

Carroll is serving up to life in prison for a murder he committed when he was 15. When he first entered, he was illiterate. Then one day Carroll grabbed what he thought was the sports page of a newspaper so his cellmate could read it to him. What he actually picked up was the business section. An older inmate asked Carroll if he knew anything about markets.

"I was like, 'The markets what?' " he says. "And he was like, 'Man, that's the stocks.' And I was really like, 'Man, nah.' "

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The inmate then told Carroll that's where white people keep their money.

"I was like, 'Whoa, white folks?' I mean anywhere white people make their money I want to be there," he says. "You know, growing up in the neighborhood everything was always associated with white prosperity, black not."

Carroll scraped together hundreds of dollars by cashing in unused postage stamps he acquired selling tobacco to prisoners. His first investment was in high-risk penny stocks, making just enough money to keep investing. The whole process motivated him to learn to read. Now, Carroll makes thousands of investments. He maintains notebooks filled with the daily stock price fluctuations of hundreds of companies.

Zak Williams, a graduate of Columbia Business School, says Carroll knows what he's talking about. He's one of several volunteers who assist Carroll with teaching the financial education class. But Williams also says Carroll's strategies are heavily based on short-term, high-risk investments. Instead, William emphasizes the long term.

"We need to take an approach that's enabling for an inmate to not have to take out a loan or a credit card line that might be considered predatory, high interest," Williams says. "We want to prevent that practice in favor of saving and responsibly investing."

San Quentin prison spokesman Sam Robinson says Carroll has learned a valuable life skill.

"Most of the skills that address rehabilitation inside of prisons have to do with vocational trades, anger management and victims-awareness type of education," he says.

The class also touches on the personal component. Prisoners are counseled about their emotional connection to money and the possible pitfalls. Rick Grimes, who is also serving a life sentence, says the lessons are valuable, teaching him to manage his money in prison and also invest money to give to his son.

"I can benefit by helping my family," Grimes says. "It still feels good to give back to my community even though I can't get out right now."

Many of the prisoners in this class will one day get out. And that feeling of being part of a community, and knowing how to manage their finances, could help make their re-entry more successful.

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