Colorado's Tabor Opera House experiencing new life after historic discovery: "We were all freaking out"

Some historic Colorado treasures were recently discovered in an unexpected part of the Tabor Opera House in Leadville.

They are hand-painted stage sets, and they were hidden away on an upper floor, far above the stage. Some of them are more than 140 years old.

Todd Howe, the technical director for the Tabor Opera House, said the spot where they were found is a place that sounds like something out of a Harry Potter book: the third-and-a-half floor.

"The scenery painters and the carpenters and all those guys, they actually had apartments up there," said Howe, describing the opera house's history.

High above the stage is the remote spot known as the fly loft, where lights and scenery are lifted out of view. As the theater changed hands in the early 1900s, opera house workers decided to stow away in that loft the backdrops created over about a two-decade period from the opera's early years.

Then, in 2020, workers realized what it was leaning against a wall.

"We were all freaking out. It was crazy," said Howe.

It was scenery created for opera house productions between 1879 and 1902. Oodles of it.

A historic scenery expert arrived after the discovery and spent months in the Colorado mountain town studying it, ultimately determining there were many dozens of pieces and the value was well over $1 million.

There were well-known scenic artists like T. Frank Cox, James E. Lamphere and Henry E. Burcky. The pieces are numbered and coded.

"The artists have actually signed this scenery and the artists that created most of this scenery were the top artists in the world back in the late 1800s, early 1900s. ... They were the Picassos of stage scenery at the time," said Howe.

Since the discovery, the opera house and the production companies using it have begun to re-incorporate the historic scenery -- most of which was well-preserved -- into current productions. This summer's play "Into the Woods" was one of them. It's a musical by James Lapin with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

But like the overall effort to save and restore the opera house, there is also a needed effort to preserve the find.

"The big challenge for the opera house is all of this stuff needs to be cleaned and preserved. And we don't have enough space here to handle that."

There are possible plans in the works to put it to use again when a mariachi band from Colorado State University performs in October, says the Tabor Opera House Preservation Foundation's executive director Sara Edwards. But perhaps the best way to see it, suggests Edwards, is to get a look during one of the opera house's historic tours, which run Thursday through Sunday until the end of September. Get more information at taboroperahouse.org.