Music: Romp in the Rockies

Opera rang out loud, clear and in English in the Rockies. The scene: the 73-year-old stone opera house in Central City, Colo., nugget-size (pop. 706) old mining town 40 miles west of Denver. The musical bill consisted of a pair of breezily staged one-acters: an English version of The Beautiful Galatea, by 19th Century Franz von ŚSuppeé, and Amelia Goes to the Ball, by today’s Gian-Carlo (The Consul) Menotti.

Thanks to music-loving tourists, including matinee crowds in shorts and shirt sleeves, the old opera house (capacity: 737) generally held more people at last week’s performances than there are in the year-round population of Central City.

Galatea, the old story of Pygmalion and the beautiful statue come to life, was done in the classic style of Viennese operetta. Its star: blonde Soprano Virginia Haskins, of Manhattan’s City Opera. Wearing a Grecian gown slit nearly to the hip, she romped through the score with lyric grace, fine acting and plenty of thigh. Menotti’s brassy Amelia, with the Met’s Eleanor Steber, kept up the hoyden theme. Soprano Steber’s rich, gusty voice was just right for the girl who has made up her mind to go to the dance, though Steber’s acting proved to be more in the statuesque old Met tradition than in Central City’s nimble one. The customers had a rollicking good time.

Central City’s modern tradition goes back 19 years to a group of theater-minded Coloradans who started a play festival. In 1940, they added grand opera to the program. Except for a wartime break, it has been going ever since. Guiding spirits this year: Met Conductor Tibor Kozma, Veteran Designer Donald Oenslager, Stage Director Alfred de Liagre Jr. and House Director Elmer Nagy. By stressing bright sets, lively acting and English librettos, they hope to develop a new U.S. audience for opera.

Meanwhile, Central City doesn’t mind being small and candidly experimental. The cost of producing four operas during a four-week season this year (the two one-acters plus Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale) is budgeted at $110,000. Ticket sales will cover most of this; subscriptions and other activities (including the opera association’s hotel and bar profits) should make up the rest. Last year’s deficit: $265.

The only trouble with Central City, says Director Nagy, “is that there aren’t a hundred of them.”