The $92 million renovation of the Quigg Newton Municipal Auditorium, which now houses the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, is a tribute to two very different city administrations working in tandem: former Mayor Wellington Webb and his successor John Hickenlooper.
Webb’s administration took on the initial challenge of renovating an outdated and dilapidated auditorium in 1988. Fabby Hillyard, Webb’s manager of theaters and arenas, and a loosely knit group called Friends of the Auditorium, created the vision of a world-class “natural sound” (unamplified) opera house with about 2,400 seats.
Initial renovation estimates ran up to $150 million. But the Webb administration believed the city could afford no more than $75 million for the project.
Hillyard decided the city could float a $25 million bond without raising taxes. This was critical in persuading voters to finance the renovation. Ed Schultz, who then worked for Denver and is now Broomfield’s budget manager, calculated the city could repay up to $50 million using its seat tax.
Using that $75 million frame, local architectural firm Semple Brown Design and local acoustician Robert Mahoney created a plan to gut the 97-year-old building’s interior, then rebuild the stage, the seating and the front lobby. Other sections of the building were redesigned, as well, but with the understanding they would remain unfinished until additional funding was found.
“Wellington believed the city should provide a top-notch basic renovation of the auditorium and that the private sectors, the benefactors, could pay for the add-ons,’ or the bells and whistles,” Hillyard said.
Sarah Brown, principal of the design firm, credited Hillyard’s tough decisions, such as leaving portions of the building unfinished. “She wanted them designed but not built,” Brown said. “She didn’t want to nickel-and-dime the opera house by completing everything.”
Voters in November 2002 approved the $25 million auditorium bond by a 2-1 margin, the only city finance issue they approved that year.
By the time Webb’s 12-year legacy ended in May 2003, Hillyard’s office had contracted out the entire renovation. The contract included firm bids for the add-ons, plus a “menu” from which the next administration could choose based on the money it raised.
Webb named the building the Quigg Newton Memorial Auditorium, after the Denver mayor who served from 1947Ð1955 and oversaw the Auditorium’s 1952 renovation.
When Mayor John Hickenlooper took office in 2003, he replaced Hillyard with Jack Finlaw, a securities lawyer and former Opera Colorado chairman who jumped at the chance to combine his legal expertise with his passion for opera. Finlaw invited the opera community to fund the remainder of the renovation in grand style.
In a savvy move, he approached George Caulkins, a successful oilman and an original founder of Vail whose wife, Ellie, developed a 30-year love affair with opera all over the world. George loved his wife but hated opera.
“He equated it with a root canal,” Ellie said recently while vacationing in Maine. “So I suspected nothing when Jack invited us to the Hotel Teatro one night for an update on the auditorium.”
At the Teatro, on Jan. 5, 2004, Hickenlooper handed a surprised Ellie a bouquet of roses and a pink hard hat bearing her name, then pulled the veil off the proclamation naming the interior the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, thanks to a $7 million donation George and his family had quietly given the city.
“It was a total surprise to me,” said Ellie, the lifetime honorary chairwoman of Opera Colorado and a 20-year board member of the Metropolitan Opera of New York. “George told me later that night he did it for me for putting up with him all those years.”
Her husband died March 24.
Finlaw raised another $2 million from Hugh Grant and Merle Chambers, longtime supporters of Opera Colorado and the Colorado Ballet. The two private donations will be used to finish a large patron’s salon in the lower level.
One of Finlaw’s priorities was seat-back screens that simulcast opera text in eight languages. Supporter Charles Kafadar contributed $1.4 million of the system’s $2.8 million price tag.
Other monies include $1.58 million from the city’s Theaters and Arenas, $950,000 from private donors, $1.2 million in interest and $720,000 from the state Historical Fund.
