History

After the tireless efforts of local volunteers, the Central City Opera House reopened in the summer of 1932 with the legendary actress Lillian Gish in the title role of Camille. She wrote in her memoirs:

"Mrs. Carrington [Margaret Carrington, a New York voice teacher who was the sister of Walter Huston] asked me how I would like to play Camille in the Central City Opera House in the mountains above Denver . . . The governors from adjoining states and their staff would come in private trains and would travel the last few miles in stagecoaches. Everyone would be dressed in the costumes of the period of our play. Seats would cost $100 apiece and would be available only to those whose ancestors had come west in covered wagons. As the town was two miles above sea level [actually, only 8,500 feet!], she added, we would be obliged to go to Denver for three weeks of rehearsal in order to become acclimated. I was captivated by everything she said and agreed to go."

- from "Central City Opera: Looking Back Over Sixty Years"

In 1934, Robert Edmund Jones – the first director of the Central City Festival and a very important personage on Broadway – proposed to invite his brother-in-law Walter Huston and Huston’s wife, Nan Sunderland to perform Shakespeare’s Othello in Central City that summer. At the time, Huston and Sunderland were grossing $30,000 a week on Broadway. Jones sent a telegram to Huston: "Dear Walter," it said, "I would like to invite you and Nan to come out to Central City, a little mining town in the mountains west of Denver, to do a production of Shakespeare’s Othello for several weeks. I can offer you $1,000 for the season."

Walter Huston’s reply was, "Dear Bobby, your terms are entirely unsatisfactory. I accept."
 

- from "Opera in the Rockies: A History of the Central City Opera House Association" by Charles A. Johnson

For the 1949 play season, the Central City Opera House Association had chosen Diamond Lil starring Mae West. Miss West was an aging sex goddess whose charm and hourglass figure belonged more to the Gay Nineties that the mid-twentieth century. Nevertheless, she still exuded the magnetism that had attracted men...

During her stay in Central City, Miss West boasted to the press, "I brought sex out of the back room. I gave it a shove with personality. I can order a cup of coffee on the stage, and the censors will be on my neck!"

Miss West made sure her arrival in Central City was noticed. She demanded that two white Cadillac limousines be placed at her disposal courtesy of the Association. She gave a birthday party for herself and invited only men, including Colorado’s governor. (He attended.) [Reportedly,] Mae put mirrors on the ceiling of Penrose #3 where she was staying during the festival.

Emerson Buckley, who conducted Miss Sills in The Ballad of Baby Doe at New York City Opera, was musical director of Central City Opera. In early 1960, he asked her if she would come to Central for the summer and mentioned the season lineup: Donizetti’s Lucia Di Lammermoor and Verdi’s Aida. Miss Sills agreed, assuming she’d be singing Lucia. Buckley, however, planned for her to sing Aida. Once she got over her initial surprise, Sills agreed, and Central City became one of only a handful of places the soprano sang the role.
 

- from "Central City Opera: Looking Back Over Sixty Years"

The world-renowned baritone began his operatic career in Central City in 1963 as a member of the chorus of Don Giovanni and Il Trovatore. He describes his experience in Central City:

"It’s a curious story. I grew up in western Kansas, where the only opera was on recordings. I was fascinated by it, but had never seen a performance. A friend of mine happened to hear that Central City was auditioning college-aged singers for its chorus and persuaded me to apply. I made a tape at the local radio station in Colby, and, lo and behold, I was hired.

"That was a great summer for the low male voice. Sherrill Milnes was there, and Spiros Malas, Richard Cross, Justino Diaz, Norman Treigle. And, of course, I had never met these men before, but we have known each other ever since. I especially became a great fan of Treigle. I made a point, after that summer, of driving to see as many of his productions as possible, and later, at (New York) City Opera, I took over many of his productions after he left. Another coincidence is that Malas, who was the Leporello at Central City that summer, was later my Leporello at the Met. So that summer was the beginning of many working relationships for me."
 

- from "Central City Opera: Looking Back Over Sixty Years"

Named one of the top ten singers of the 1990’s by the Associated Press, Graves came to Central City as a young singer in 1986 and 1987. As a Studio Artist in the company’s Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Artists Training Program, she particularly remembers learning from John Moriarty:

"What I remember about my summers in Central City was that I got my first big contract by singing there. Ed Purrington from Tulsa Opera happened to be in the audience when I did a Salon Recital and offered me a job. And of course I especially remember my work with John. I think he's absolutely brilliant. John's program is what really prepared me about my career. It was my best training and my most thorough training.
 

"I learned so much from him. The audition skills were invaluable in the beginning of my career. I learned to make eye contact when I entered, and to realize I was making an impression from the moment I walked in the door. And then, selling a song! I still apply what I learned from John about using my entire body - my lips, my eyes, my voice - to convey what you're trying to create. I learned you have to assume the audience knows nothing about what you are singing. And that it is up to you to tell the story and commit yourself fully through complete involvement. In fact, I just came off a 40-city recital tour in which I found myself still applying these precepts.

"And the coaching I received from him! One of the first arias I ever coached with him was ‘mon coeur’ - Delilah's aria - which has become a major role for me. Every time I sing it (and I just sang it at the Met), I hear his voice in my head, making me accentuate the vowels in the middle section. And the only other voice I allow in my head is my husband’s."

- from "A Tribute to John Moriarty," Central City Opera 1998 program