Central City Opera House

In 1877, the citizens of Central City formed the Gilpin County Opera House Association to fundraise for the state's first opera house. The opera house is kept cool during the summer by a creek flows that through a flume under the building. Electricity was installed in 1896 and it was renovated, without structural changes, in 1903. In 1929 a dedicated band of Denver preservationists and music lovers formed the Central City Opera House Association to perform a renovation and re-open the opera house. It was a volunteer-driven effort led by Ida Kruse McFarlane, Edna Chappell and Anne Evans that resulted in an extensive restoration of the Opera House in 1932. In the 1980s and 1990s, the entire structure was restored, including the foundation and replacement of the 1920-era lighting relic by a computerized lighting system. In 1999, wooden chairs were replaced with plush new theater seating. ==Productions and cinema==

. With the 1878 grand opening, Central City was Colorado's cultural capital until another opera house, Tabor Grand Opera House, opened in 1881. The Opera House was not turning a profit and it expanded its repertoire to include theater productions to increase its revenues. They featured prominent 19th-century actors such as Joseph Jefferson, Edwin Booth, Madame Januschek and Fannie Barlow. It began a tradition of offering summer opera and theater festivals, which have become nationally recognized. It is the fifth oldest opera company in the United States. One of its popular performances is The Ballad of Baby Doe, which tells the story of wealthy mine-owner Horace Tabor and his second wife Baby Doe Tabor. It was first performed in 1956. Samuel Ramey and Beverly Sills have performed at the opera house. It was noted by Daniel Rule, who managed the Central City Opera company, that 29 of the performers of the Metropolitan Opera in New York had performed at Central City. The Central City Opera House Association owns 30 Victorian houses in town that are used during the summer to board singers who perform at the opera house. Up until 2000 all of the operas were performed in English. Central City Opera now performs all of its operas in their original languages. ==Popular culture==

It was a film location for the movie The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox starring Goldie Hawn and George Segal. It was also referenced in chapter 9 of On the Road by Jack Kerouac, mentioning the opera Fidelio and interactions with the performers in a wild night in Central City as the western opera world intersected with the Beat Generation. ==See also==