You don’t have to sing “Figaro” in the shower to be proud of Denver’s most recent cultural addition: a grand opera house being touted as among the world’s finest.
The Ellie Caulkins Opera House opened this past weekend, one of several new venues that will burnish Denver’s emerging arts image. The new Denver Art Museum addition will open in fall 2006. A new home for the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver is underway, as is a museum to house the works of abstract expressionist Clyfford Still. A project also is on the drawing board to bring books, music and arts together in and around the old Lowenstein Theatre at East Colfax Avenue and Elizabeth Street.
We celebrate the added richness of Denver’s cultural landscape and the fact that Colorado has the audience (and city hall the vision) to support the entire range of artistic activities, from low-rent to highbrow.
The Caulkins Opera House is located at 14th and Curtis streets, inside the newly renovated 1908 building known as the Quigg Newton Denver Municipal Auditorium. The renovations got rave reviews at opening events over the weekend. The decision to restore and embellish the auditorium originated with arts officials in Mayor Wellington Webb’s administration. Opera and ballet will be showcased at the new venue, but plays and concerts also will be staged.
The auditorium/opera house project cost $92 million, funded largely through Denver’s seat tax, paid by ticketholders who attend events in city-owned venues from Red Rocks to the Convention Center. Private donations also were critical.
The 2,268-seat venue is named after Ellie Caulkins, wife of oilman George Caulkins, an original founder of Vail. Mrs. Caulkins is an honorary board chairman of Opera Colorado who has traveled the world to indulge her 30-year passion. Her husband made a $7 million gift to complete the opera house. (Mrs. Caulkins recently told The Post that he loved her but hated opera, equating it with a root canal.) He passed away in March.
It was only a few decades back when the city had not a single high-caliber venue for dance or classical music, and Denver’s cultural transformation is making a national impression. With the new opera house, Denver joins a handful of other American cities – Seattle, Miami and Dallas – that are constructing or have recently completed such structures. We’re proud of Denver’s grand addition.
