Central City Opera House

Central City Opera House

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Built in 1878, the Central City Opera House was saved in the early 1930s by the start of the Central City Opera Festival.

Central City Opera House
The Marriage of Figaro at the Central City Opera

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For its 2014 festival, Central City Opera presented Mozart’s classic opera The Marriage of Figaro. This clip shows the finale of the opera’s second act.

The Marriage of Figaro at the Central City Opera
Central City Opera House

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Designed by Denver architect Robert Roeschlaub, the Central City Opera House opened in March 1878. It briefly made Central City the cultural capital of Colorado.

Central City Opera House
Central City Opera House Interior

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The Central City Opera House was restored in the early 1930s and became home to the Central City Opera Festival. The festival flourished in the 1950s, but maintenance costs and declining attendance caused a financial crisis in the 1970s.

Central City Opera House Interior
Central City Opera House Ceiling

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The opera house interior originally featured five ceiling paintings depicting classical motifs by the San Francisco artist John C. Massman. The ceiling paintings and chandelier were restored in the early 1930s with the help of Colorado muralist Allen True.

Central City Opera House Ceiling
Opening Night, 1932

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The Central City Opera Festival staged its first performance, a production of Camille starring the silent-movie star Lillian Gish, in July 1932. The director, Robert Edmond Jones, asked the audience to wear 1870s clothing to evoke the opera house's early days. The opera festival is now the second-oldest summer opera company in the United States.

Opening Night, 1932

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Built in 1878, the Central City Opera House is the oldest opera house in Colorado. Though it declined along with Central City’s economy in the 1880s, it puttered along as a theater and movie house until owner Peter McFarlane finally closed its doors in 1927. Five years later, the building was revived and restored to host a summer festival put on by the Central City Opera House Association, which is now the fifth-oldest opera company and second-oldest summer opera company in the United States.

Construction and Early Years

Central City was steeped in theater starting in its early years; its first major theater, the Montana, opened in 1862, just two years after the city was founded. The Montana burned in the great fire of 1874, however, along with much of the business district. A new theater, the Belvidere, opened the next year, but it occupied the upper floor of a building and seated only 450. Many considered it inadequate for the city’s needs.

In 1877 the resounding success of an amateur production of The Bohemian Girl provided the necessary spark to organize a movement for a new opera house. The community quickly formed the Gilpin County Opera House Association and raised $12,000 for construction, though costs eventually escalated to $32,000. Ground was broken on June 14, 1877. Designed by Denver architect Robert S. Roeschlaub, the opera house was a large stone Renaissance Revival building with four-foot-thick walls. The interior featured five ceiling paintings depicting classical motifs by the San Francisco artist John C. Massman. The theater could seat more than 700 people.

The Central City Opera House opened on March 4, 1878. It actually had two opening nights, one for music and one for drama, both featuring only local amateur talent. The opera house briefly made Central City the cultural capital of Colorado. It showed everything from vaudeville and minstrel shows to Shakespeare, and also hosted political rallies and civic events.

Precarious Survival

The opening of Denver’s Tabor Grand Opera House in September 1881 immediately threatened the survival of the Central City Opera House. Touring companies and audiences no longer needed to go to Central City. Originally owned by the city, the Central City Opera House had by this time been acquired by Henry R. Wolcott. Wolcott saw the writing on the wall after the opening of the Tabor Grand and promptly sold the building to Gilpin County for $8,000 for use as a courthouse. Completed in January 1882, the sale angered those locals who had contributed to the opera house’s construction just a few years earlier. They banded together to reorganize the Gilpin County Opera House Association as a corporation with shareholders. They sold stock to raise the necessary $8,000 and bought the building back from the county in December 1882.

The amateur actor Horace M. Hale, who was the largest stockholder in the opera house association, became the manager. The opera house never made much money, but it remained open by luring theatrical productions to Central City after they had played in Denver. Unfortunately, low profits meant much necessary maintenance on the building was deferred. Especially after Hale left Central City for Denver in 1886, the building began to deteriorate. By the 1890s some thought it unsafe for performances. Hale returned to inspect the opera house and hired Peter McFarlane to assume indirect management of the building.

McFarlane was one of the original contractors who had helped build the opera house and wanted to own it himself. He soon started to repair and improve the building at his own expense. He installed electric lights in 1896. In the fall of 1898, he began buying stock in the opera house association. In 1900 he assumed full management of the building, and in 1901 he became majority owner when he bought Hale’s 200 shares for $900. Over the next decade he kept buying opera house association stock when he could, until by 1911 he owned 80 percent.

McFarlane had to undertake a major restoration of the opera house in the early 1900s, repairing a leaky roof, replacing the seating, and installing a new furnace. He believed the opera house could turn a profit, but Central City’s declining economy made that increasingly difficult. McFarlane made at most a few hundred dollars a year from the opera house. He was able to keep it open largely because he had other businesses that supplied his income. During these years the opera house also continued to host local civic, religious, and political meetings.

The opera house’s last regular season of performances ended in May 1908. For the next two years, the building opened only occasionally for community events and traveling shows. It hosted a series of boxing matches in the winter of 1909–10. The next year McFarlane installed movie equipment and opened the opera house as a cinema on July 4, 1910. Except for a four-month closure during the flu epidemic of 1918, the opera house operated continuously as a movie theater for more than fifteen years. Profits were meager or nonexistent. McFarlane showed his final film at the opera house on January 1, 1927, and then closed the building for good.

Restoration and Revival

McFarlane died on May 1, 1929, and left his opera house association stock to his three children. The family initially planned to sell the opera house for use as a warehouse or gymnasium, but McFarlane’s daughter-in-law Ida Kruse McFarlane, a professor of English at the University of Denver, thought it should be restored and returned to its original use. With support from Walter Sinclair, head of the Denver Civic Theater, and Anne Evans, a Denver Civic Theater trustee and daughter of former territorial governor John Evans, Ida McFarlane persuaded her husband and the other two McFarlane children to give the opera house to the University of Denver to host summer opera festivals. This gift was realized in 1931, after the family cleared its title to the building by paying ten years of back taxes (only a few hundred dollars).

Ida McFarlane, Anne Evans, the artist Allen True, and the prominent Denverites Edna and Delos Chappell established the Central City Opera House Association and hoped to stage their first performances in the summer of 1931. Years of neglect had not been kind to the building, however, and it required extensive renovations. The roof leaked, the ceiling was damaged, and the chandelier was missing. The building was full of rats and covered in grime. The restoration took four months and cost $25,000, much of it accomplished with the help of gifts and volunteers.

The opera house was ready in time to hold a festival in the summer of 1932. The opera house association got the prominent Broadway set designer Robert Edmond Jones to design and direct a production Camille, with the silent-movie star Lillian Gish in the title role. Jones liked the town and the theater, and his involvement gave the inaugural Central City Opera Festival national recognition.

Opening night was set for July 16. Jones asked the audience to wear 1870s clothing to evoke the opera house’s early days. The Colorado and Southern Railroad ran a special train from Denver to Black Hawk for the festival, with stagecoaches carrying people the final mile to Central City. Milton Bernet, a vice president of Mountain Bell, helped drum up publicity for the opening. The Denver Post ran a special section, stories went out on national wire services, and the New York Times covered the event. The opening ceremonies, held in front of the restored opera house, were broadcast on NBC radio.

The 1932 Central City Opera Festival was a success despite the treacherous drive from Denver (the main route in was a winding dirt road from Idaho Springs) and the lack of adequate lodging in town. Most performances of Camille sold out, and plenty of other people came to Central City to see the “rediscovered” mining town and take advantage of the city’s decision to allow gambling during the festival. Since then, the opera house has hosted the Central City Opera Festival almost every year.

Central City Opera Festival

During the 1932 festival, the Central City Opera House Association reorganized as a separate entity outside the University of Denver’s umbrella. The university gave the opera house association a ninety-nine-year lease on the building. The association was soon able to secure Jones as producer and director of the festival for a five-year term. Jones’s fame and connections helped draw more stars to Central City, including Walter Huston and his wife, Nan Sunderland, who performed in Othello for the 1934 festival.

The festival shut down from 1942 to 1945 because of World War II. It was revived after the war and quickly expanded under the leadership of Frank Ricketson, who had become head of the opera house association. With multiple productions (including a separate play season starting in 1947), a ball, a fashion show, luncheons, and critical panels, the festival was drawing a large crowd to Central City and making the town into a tourist attraction. It helped that the road from Idaho Springs had finally been paved in the early 1940s. The Ballad of Baby Doe had its world premiere at the opera house during the 1956 festival.

The festival had always relied on donations to make up its operating deficit, but fundraising became increasingly important in the 1950s. The old opera house building required frequent maintenance and repairs, and in the 1960s the festival’s attendance began to suffer a worrisome decline. The eventual result was a financial crisis, leading to a vastly reduced 1971 festival. In 1975 the Central City Opera House Association began to stage operas in Denver as well as Central City in an attempt to attract larger audiences. Nevertheless, debts continued to mount until they totaled $640,000 in February 1982, forcing the cancellation of the festival’s fiftieth anniversary season that summer.

The festival returned in 1983 with a renewed emphasis on staging popular productions from the standard opera repertory. Ticket sales and ticket prices both climbed. By the early 1990s seasons were starting to sell out again. Increased revenues allowed the opera house association to perform major repairs to the building’s foundation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Further work followed later in the 1990s, including new seating that reduced the building’s capacity to 550.

In the early 1990s Colorado legalized gambling in the mining towns of Central City, Black Hawk, and Cripple Creek. After gambling’s legalization, the opera house association leased one of its properties, the Teller House hotel, to a casino operator. The deal resulted in a $17 million windfall, including a $10 million renovation of the Teller House. Most gamblers ended up going to Black Hawk, however, making gaming in Central City less profitable than expected. As a result, the casino operator relinquished its lease on the Teller House after a decade. The building now houses a restaurant and bar, and hosts festival events such as receptions and recitals. Aside from its lease of the Teller House, the opera house association has also benefited from gaming through the construction of the Central City Parkway in the early 2000s, which made access from Denver easier than ever before.

The opera house association, now known as Central City Opera, continues to maintain the opera house, where it hosts its annual summer opera festival.

10th Grade

The Central City Opera had its first summer festival in 1932. It was held in the Central City Opera House that had been built in 1878. The festival attracted star talent because top directors and performers were available during the summer. Starting in the 1960s a series of financial problems beset the organization. Since then, the opera has found a successful formula that mixes opera standards, popular musicals, and new works.

Origins

The Central City Opera House opened in March 1878. It was designed by Denver architect Robert S. Roeschlaub. The opera house made Central City the cultural capital of Colorado. But just three years later, the Tabor Grand Opera House opened in Denver. Peter McFarlane acquired the opera house and in 1910 turned it into a movie house. After struggling for years to keep it open, McFarlane showed a final film there on January 1, 1927 and he closed the building.

McFarlane died on May 1, 1929 and left the opera house to his three children. The family planned to sell it for use as a warehouse. McFarlane’s daughter-in-law, Ida Kruse McFarlane, was a professor of English at the University of Denver. She thought the Opera House should be restored and returned to its original use. Walter Sinclair, head of the Denver Civic Theater and Anne Evans, a Denver Civic Theater trustee and daughter of former territorial governor John Evans supported the idea. Ida McFarlane persuaded her husband and his siblings to give the opera house to the University of Denver to host a summer opera festival. The family paid ten years of back taxes and cleared the title to the building. The taxes amounted to just a few hundred dollars. In 1931, the family donated the building for use as an opera house.

Ida McFarlane and Anne Evans established the Central City Opera House Association. They were joined by artist Allen True and prominent Denverites Edna and Delos Chappell. Extensive renovations were made that cost $25,000. The opera house was ready in time to hold an opera festival in the summer of 1932. The Opera House Association hired Broadway set designer Robert Edmond Jones. He designed and directed a production of Camille. His involvement gave the first Central City Opera Festival national recognition. Famous silent-movie star Lillian Gish played the title role of Camille.

Opening night was set for July 16, 1932. Jones asked the audience to wear 1870s clothing to evoke the opera house’s early days. The Colorado and Southern Railroad ran a special train from Denver to Black Hawk. Stagecoaches carried people the final mile to Central City. The Denver Post ran a special section about the opera. News stories were sent out on national wire services and the New York Times covered the event. The Opening Ceremony, held in front of the restored opera house, was broadcast on NBC radio.

The 1932 Central City Opera Festival was a success and the performances of Camille sold out. This was in spite of the treacherous drive from Denver and the lack of adequate lodging options in town. The main route into Central City was a winding dirt road from Idaho Springs. Many people came to Central City to see the rediscovered mining town. Some took advantage of the city’s decision to allow gambling during the opera festival. Since then the opera house has hosted the Central City Opera Festival almost every year.

Early Decades

In 1932, the Central City Opera House Association separated from the University of Denver. The university gave the Opera House Association a ninety-nine-year lease on the building. The Association hired Jones as producer and director of the festival. Jones’s fame and connections helped draw stars to Central City. These included Walter Huston and his wife, Nan Sunderland, who performed in Othello for the 1934 festival. By 1940 the festival had twent-four performances and drew more than 20,000 people.

The Festival shut down from 1942 to 1945 because of World War II. It was revived after the war and expanded under the leadership of Frank Ricketson. He become head of the Opera House Association. Ricketson stayed in the job until 1963 and worked during the Festival’s “golden years.” The Festival was able to attract top talent and crowds in the decades after World War II. In 1947 the season expanded to three full-scale productions, two operas and one play. It drew the largest audiences to date. The performance of a play became a regular part of the Festival’s offerings. Since New York theaters closed in August, it was easy to get a Broadway production to come to Central City for the month.

Ricketson had a background in movie promotion. He added a variety of festival events to draw larger crowds. These included a ball, a fashion show, luncheons, and critical panels. In 1949, actress Mae West appeared in her play Diamond Lil. More than 300,000 tourists came to Central City during the summer season. About 42,000 people attended a show at the opera house. In 1955 more than half a million tourists visited Central City.

Central City Opera expanded its artistic role by commissioning new works. In 1955 the Festival contacted Douglas Moore, who had won a Pulitzer Prize for his opera Giants in the Earth (1951). He wrote an original opera about Colorado mining legend Horace Tabor and his wife, Elizabeth “Baby Doe” Tabor. The Ballad of Baby Doe had its world premiere during the opera festival’s twenty-fifth season in 1956. Critics from across the country were in attendance. The opera was a hit with audiences and critics alike. In 1958 it opened in New York City. It has become one of the few twentieth-century American operas to be produced regularly.

Central City Opera has commissioned other works and staged world premieres. Some focused on Colorado history. These were not as successful as The Ballad of Baby Doe. In 1958 an original play called And Perhaps Happiness was staged. It was about the Colorado Gold Rush by poet and historian Thomas Hornsby Ferrill. In 1964 another commissioned opera was performed. It was titled The Lady from Colorado and was about Colorado pioneer Katie Lawder. Critics panned the story and the music. They were unable to tell if the show was an opera, a musical comedy, or something else entirely.

Financial Struggles

Ricketson retired in 1963. Underlying problems with Central City Opera’s finances became apparent. The festival needed donations to make up its operating costs and fundraising became more important. The old opera house building needed maintenance and repairs. In the 1960s the festival’s attendance began to decrease. The new Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico took away some of Central City Opera’s support.

The result was a financial crisis. It led to a reduced 1971 festival with no opera productions. Opera returned the next year, but the festival remained on shaky financial footing. In 1975 the Central City Opera House Association began to perform operas in Denver to attract larger audiences. Debts continued to mount until they totaled $640,000 in February 1982. This forced the cancellation of the festival’s fiftieth anniversary season that summer.

Revival

The festival returned in 1983 under new artistic director John Moriarty. He brought a strong emphasis on staging standard opera productions. Each season began to feature two operas and one operetta. The play portion of the festival had been dropped in the 1970s. New York theaters had stopped taking a summer break. From 1984 until 1987 the operetta went on the road to Denver, Fort Collins, and Colorado Springs. This was to raise awareness of the Central City Opera along the Front Range. Moriarty’s efforts resulted in a sharp increase in ticket sales, from $262,000 in 1984 to $635,000 in 1989. By the early 1990s seasons were starting to sell out again.

Moriarty created the Central City Opera’s Apprentice Artists Program in 1978. Aspiring opera singers joined the choruses. They received ten weeks of intensive instruction in singing, acting, and opera performance. The program was popular among young opera singers. It was so successful that there were 1,200 applications for twenty-six openings in 1984.

In the early 1990s Colorado legalized gambling in the mining towns of Central City, Black Hawk, and Cripple Creek. Central City Opera leased one of its properties, the Teller House hotel, to a casino operator. The deal resulted in a $17 million windfall, including a $10 million renovation of the Teller House. Gaming in Central City was less profitable than expected. The casino operator gave up its lease on the Teller House after a decade. The building now houses a restaurant and bar. It also hosts festival events such as receptions and recitals. Central City Opera benefited from gaming when the Central City Parkway was built in the 2000s. This made access from Denver easier than ever before.

Today

In 1998 Pelham “Pat” Pearce took over from Moriarty as the festival’s general director. Under his leadership Central City Opera has started to present more adventurous productions. They have focused on modern American and lesser-known operas. In 2000, the festival started performing in languages other than English. Translations are provided above the stage for the audience to follow along.

Pearce has brought premieres and other important productions to Central City. In 2001, it presented the American premiere of Benjamin Britten’s opera Gloriana that was composed for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. A few years later Pearce gambled on a production of Claudio Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea, It is a little-performed but historically important seventeenth-century opera. In 2003 the festival staged the world premiere of its fourth commissioned opera, Gabriel’s Daughter. It was written by Henry Mollicone and William Luce. The opera told the story of Clara Brown, a freed slave who was the first black woman in Colorado. In 2007 the company presented its sixth world premiere, the Chinese composer Guo Wenjing’s opera about Poet Li Bai.

This new focus has proven successful at Central City. The festival has a short summer season and audiences are willing to travel to see new or unusual performances. As a result, the festival has a stable place in the Denver arts landscape. Opera Colorado in Denver draws bigger stars and puts on larger productions. The Central City Opera focuses on developing young talent and experimenting with offbeat repertoire. The companies considered combining in 2013, when Opera Colorado came close to closing. They decided to remain separate in order to maintain their distinct missions.

The mission of the Central City Opera includes the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Artists Training Program. This program attracts top young opera talent for ten weeks of rigorous training and career development. About 900 singers apply each year for the program’s thirty spots. Program alumni, including Cynthia Lawrence, Denyce Graves, Don Bernardini, and Alan Held, have gone on to distinguished careers. Many return to the Central City Opera in starring roles.

In addition, historic preservation has been an integral part of Central City Opera’s mission. Back in the 1940s it began to acquire old houses around Central City for use as housing for festival staff and artists. The opera house association bought the Teller House, a nearby hotel. Central City Opera owns about thirty buildings in town. These include Festival Hall that is a former brewery that serves as administrative offices. It also owns McFarlane Foundry, an 1860s building repurposed as a rehearsal hall and Williams Stables, a former livery that is now a performance space.

8th Grade

The Central City Opera had its first summer festival in 1932. It was held in the Central City Opera House that had been built in 1878. The festival attracted star talent because top directors and performers were available during the summer. The Central City Opera has offered opera, popular musicals, and new works at their festival.

Origins

The Central City Opera House opened in March 1878. The opera house made Central City the cultural capital of Colorado. But three years later, the Tabor Grand Opera House opened in Denver. Peter McFarlane bought the opera house and in 1910 turned it into a movie house. After struggling for years to keep it open, McFarlane showed a final film there on January 1, 1927. Then he closed the building.

McFarlane died on May 1, 1929 and left the opera house to his three children. The family planned to sell it for use as a warehouse. McFarlane’s daughter-in-law, Ida McFarlane, was a professor at the University of Denver. She thought the Opera House should be restored and returned to its original use. Walter Sinclair, head of the Denver Civic Theater supported the idea. Anne Evans, a Denver Civic Theater trustee and daughter of former territorial governor John Evans was interested as well. Ida McFarlane persuaded her husband and his siblings to give the opera house to the University of Denver. The family paid ten years of back taxes of a few hundred dollars. In 1931, the family donated the building for use as an opera house.

Ida McFarlane and Anne Evans started the Central City Opera House Association. Extensive renovations were made that cost $25,000. The opera house was ready in time to hold an opera festival in the summer of 1932. The Opera House Association hired Broadway set designer Robert Edmond Jones. He designed and directed a production of Camille. His involvement gave the first Central City Opera Festival national recognition. Famous silent-movie star Lillian Gish played the title role of Camille.

Opening night was set for July 16, 1932. The audience wore 1870s clothing to evoke the opera house’s early days. The Colorado and Southern Railroad ran a special train from Denver to Black Hawk. Stagecoaches carried people the final mile to Central City. The Denver Post ran a special section about the opera. News stories were sent out and the New York Times covered the event. The Opening Ceremony, held in front of the restored opera house, was broadcast on NBC radio.

The 1932 Central City Opera Festival was a success and the performances of Camille sold out. This was in spite of the dangerous drive from Denver and the lack of lodging in town. Many people came to see the “rediscovered” mining town. The city’s decided to allow gambling during the opera festival. Since then the opera house has hosted the Central City Opera Festival almost every year.

Early Decades

In 1932, the Central City Opera House Association separated from the University of Denver. The university gave the Opera House Association a ninety-nine-year lease on the building. The Association hired Jones as producer and director of the festival. Jones’s connections helped draw stars to Central City. By 1940 the festival had 24 performances and drew more than 20,000 people.

The Festival shut down from 1942 to 1945 due to World War II. It was started again after the war. Frank Ricketson become head of the Opera House Association. Ricketson stayed in the job until 1963. He worked during Festival’s “golden years.” The Festival attracted top talent and crowds after World War II. In 1947 the season expanded to two operas and one play. It drew the largest audience to date. The performance of a play became a regular part of the Festival’s offerings. Since New York theaters closed in August, it was easy to get a Broadway production to come to Central City for the month.

Ricketson had a background in movie promotion. He added a variety of festival events to draw larger crowds. These included a ball, a fashion show, luncheons, and discussion panels. In 1949, actress Mae West appeared in her play Diamond Lil. More than 300,000 tourists came to Central City during the summer. About 42,000 people attended a show at the opera house. In 1955 more than half a million tourists visited Central City.

In 1955 the Festival contacted Douglas Moore, who had won a Pulitzer Prize for his opera Giants in the Earth (1951). He was asked to write an opera for the Central City opera. He wrote an opera about Colorado miner Horace Tabor and his wife “Baby Doe” Tabor. The Ballad of Baby Doe was first performed during the festival’s twenty-fifth season in 1956. Critics from across the country came to see it and the opera was a hit. In 1958 it opened in New York City. It is one of the few American operas to be produced regularly.

Central City Opera commissioned other operas and plays. Some focused on Colorado history. These were not as successful as The Ballad of Baby Doe. In 1958 an original play called And Perhaps Happiness was put on. It was written by poet Thomas Hornsby Ferrill about the Colorado Gold Rush. In 1964 another commissioned opera was performed. It was titled The Lady from Colorado and was about a Colorado pioneer. Critics panned the story and the music. Neither of these was liked by the critics.

Financial Struggles

Ricketson retired in 1963. There were problems with Central City Opera’s finances. The festival needed more donations to make up its operating costs. The old opera house building needed repairs. In the 1960s the festival’s attendance began to decrease. A new opera company in Santa Fe took away some of Central City Opera’s support.

The result was a financial crisis. In 1971 the festival did not perform an opera. An opera was put on the next year, but money was still an issue. In 1975 the Central City Opera House began to perform operas in Denver to attract larger audiences. But, debts continued to rise. The opera was forced to cancel the 50th anniversary season in 1982.

Revival

In 1983 the festival started again with a new artistic director, John Moriarty. He liked to stage standard opera productions. Each season featured two operas and one operetta. The play portion of the festival had been dropped in the 1970s. New York theaters had stopped taking a summer break. From 1984 until 1987 the operetta went on the road to Denver, Fort Collins, and Colorado Springs. This was to advertise the Central City Opera. This resulted in an increase in ticket sales. Tickets raised $262,000 in 1984 and $635,000 in 1989. By the early 1990s seasons were starting to sell out again.

Moriarty created the Central City Opera’s Apprentice Artists Program in 1978. Aspiring opera singers joined the choruses. They received ten weeks of instruction in singing, acting, and opera performance. The program was popular among young opera singers. It was so successful that there were 1,200 applications for twenty-six openings in 1984.

In the early 1990s Colorado allowed gambling in Central City, Black Hawk, and Cripple Creek. Central City Opera leased one of its properties, the Teller House hotel, to a casino operator. They got 17 million dollars that included a $10 million renovation of the Teller House. Gaming in Central City was less profitable than expected. The casino operator gave up its lease on the Teller House after a decade. The building now is a restaurant and bar. It hosts festival events like receptions and recitals. Central City Opera benefited when the Central City Parkway was built in the 2000s. This made access from Denver easier than before.

Today

In 1998 Pelham “Pat” Pearce took over as the festival’s general director. Under his leadership it puts on more unusual productions. He has focused on modern and lesser-known operas. In 2000, the festival started performing in languages other than English. Translations are provided above the stage for the audience to follow along.

Pearce brought other important productions to Central City. In 2001, Benjamin Britten’s opera Gloriana was performed in America for the first time. It had been written for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. A few years later Pearce staged Claudio Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea. It is a little-performed but important seventeenth-century opera.

In 2003 the festival had another work written for them. Gabriel’s Daughter was written by Henry Mollicone and William Luce. The opera told the story of Clara Brown, a freed slave who was the first black woman in Colorado. In 2007 the company presented another world premiere opera about Poet Li Bai by Gue Wenjing.

This new focus has proven successful at Central City. Audiences are willing to travel to see new or unusual performances. As a result, the festival has an important place in Denver arts.

The Central City Opera includes the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Artists Training Program. This program attracts top young opera singers. They come for ten weeks of rigorous training and career development. About 900 singers apply each year for the program’s thirty spots.

In addition, historic preservation is part of Central City Opera’s mission. Back in the 1940s it began to buy old houses around Central City. They needed housing for festival staff and artists. The opera house association bought the Teller House, a nearby hotel. Central City Opera owns about thirty buildings in town. These include Festival Hall that is a former brewery. It serves as administrative offices. It also owns McFarlane Foundry. It is an 1860s building they use as a rehearsal hall. Williams Stables is a former livery stable that is now a performance space.

4th Grade

The Central City Opera had its first summer festival in 1932. It was held in the Central City Opera House that had been built in 1878. Opera, popular musicals, and new works are still performed for the festival.

Origins

The Central City Opera House opened in 1878. It was a community gathering place when Central City was a gold rush town. Later, Peter McFarlane bought the opera house. In 1910 he turned it into a movie house. He struggled for years to keep it open. McFarlane showed a final film there on January 1, 1927. Then he closed the building.

Peter McFarlane died in 1929. He left the opera house to his children. The family planned to sell it. McFarlane’s daughter-in-law, Ida Kruse McFarlane, was a professor at the University of Denver. She thought the building should be used as an opera house again.

The McFarlane family decided to give the opera house to the University of Denver. In 1931, the family donated the building for use as an opera house.

Ida McFarlane and Anne Evans started the Central City Opera House Association. Anne Evans, loved the arts and was the daughter of territorial governor John Evans. They spent $25,000 fixing up the building. The opera house held an opera festival in the summer of 1932. The first opera was called Camille. Famous silent-movie star Lillian Gish played the title role of Camille.

Opening night was on July 16, 1932. The audience wore 1870s clothing to give the feeling of the opera house’s early days. A special train ran from Denver to Black Hawk. Stagecoaches carried people the final mile to Central City. The Denver Post ran a special report about the opera. News stories were sent out and the New York Times covered the event. It was broadcast on NBC radio.

The 1932 Central City Opera Festival was a success. The performances of Camille sold out. The festival brought people to Central City. Many people came to see the old mining town. Since then the opera house has hosted the Central City Opera Festival almost every year.

Early Decades

The Central City Opera House Association separated from the University of Denver in 1932. The Festival continued to be popular and successful.

The Festival shut down from 1942 to 1945 due to World War II. It started again after the war. Frank Ricketson was the director until 1963. The Festival attracted top talent and crowds. In 1947 the season put on two operas and one play. These drew large audiences. The New York theaters closed in August. It was easy to get a Broadway play to come to Central City for the month.

Ricketson added new festival events. These included a ball, a fashion show, luncheons, and discussion panels. More than 300,000 tourists came to Central City during the summer season. About 42,000 people attended a show at the opera house. In 1955 more than half a million tourists visited Central City.

In 1955 the Festival asked Douglas Moore, to write an opera for the them. He wrote an opera about Colorado miner Horace Tabor and his wife “Baby Doe” Tabor. The Ballad of Baby Doe was put on in 1956. Critics from across the country came to see it. The opera was a hit. In 1958 it opened in New York City.

Financial Struggles

Ricketson retired in 1963. There were financial problems. The festival needed more donations. The old opera house needed repairs. In the 1960s the festival’s attendance began to decrease.

In 1971 the festival did not perform an opera. An opera was put on the next year, but money was still an issue. Debts continued to rise. The opera cancelled its 50th season in 1982.

Revival

In 1983 the festival started again. Each season had two operas and one operetta. The operetta was performed in Denver, Fort Collins, and Colorado Springs. This was to advertise the Central City Opera. There was an increase in ticket sales. By the early 1990s tickets were starting to sell out again.

Today

In 1998 Pelham “Pat” Pearce was the festival’s general director. He put on unusual productions. In 2000, the festival started performing in languages other than English. Translations are provided above the stage for the audience to follow along.

In 2003 Gabriel’s Daughter was written for the Opera House. The opera told the story of Clara Brown. She was freed slave who was the first black woman in Colorado. In 2007 the company presented an opera about Poet Li Bai by Gue Wenjing.

Central City Opera is successful again. Audiences are traveling to Central City to see the performances. The festival has an important place in Denver arts. The Central City Opera focuses on developing young talent and experimenting with opera.

The Central City Opera includes the Bonfils-Stanton Artists Training Program. This program attracts top young opera singers. They come for ten weeks of training. About 900 singers apply each year for the program’s thirty spots.

Teacher Resources

Central City Opera House Teacher Resource Set - Word

Central City Opera House Teacher Resource Set - PDF

Author:

Encyclopedia Staff

References:

Roger Baker, Before Camille: The First Fifty-Five Years of the Central City Opera House and Theater in Central City (Central City, CO: Black Hawk Publishing, 2007).

Charles A. Johnson, Opera in the Rockies: A History of the Central City Opera House Association, 1932–1992 (Central City, CO: Central City Opera House Association, 1992).

Charlie H. Johnson, Jr., The Central City Opera House: A 100 Year History (Colorado Springs: Little London Press, 1980).

Liston E. Leyendecker and Perry Eberhart, “Central City Opera House,” National Register of Historic Places Inventory–Nomination Form (December 7, 1971).

Additional Information:

H. William Axford, Gilpin County Gold: Peter McFarlane, 1848–1929, Mining Entrepreneur in Central City, Colorado (Chicago: Swallow Press, 1976).

Central City Opera House

Alan Granruth, ed., The Little Kingdom of Gilpin: Gilpin County, Colorado (Gilpin County Historical Society, 2000).

Alan Granruth, Mining Gold to Mining Wallets: Central City, Colorado, 1859–1999 (1999).

Theatre of Dreams: The Glorious Central City Opera: Celebrating 75 Years (Denver: Central City Opera House Association, 2007).

Theme:

Place

Category:

Places

Place:

Historic and Archaeological Sites