True Love Trumps the Camden Opera House

7/29/12: I had hoped to add a new posting about the Camden Opera House before we returned to California at the end of July for the joyous wedding of my daughter, Katherine, and her fiancee, Kemble Pope.  But you know what happens to the best laid plans.... 

Katherine and Kemble wed in the Woods' walnut grove in the Capay Valley, outside of Davis, California.

 Now we are back in Maine, so here goes with the delayed posting.  In June, I was lucky enough to have a private tour of the Camden Opera House while we were staying in Camden.  In July, Conrad and I went to a showing at the opera house of Forrest Gump because it featured some nearby sights, like the Marshall Point Lighthouse, and a number of locals as film extras.  Since then I've meant to write about the opera house.

Grand staircase to the Camden Opera House

The opera house is a charming Victorian-era theater, still much used by the Camden community.  When it  was built in 1894, it was the tallest building in the county with its three brick stories.  The opera building's auditorium is on the second and third floors, with various municipal offices on the first floor.

For the Forrest Gump performance, we climbed the grand staircase from the street up to the halls of the opera house.  The auditorium and entry are hung with grand chandeliers, and the opera hall boasts a horseshoe balcony, antique moldings, detailed restorations of Victorian friezes, and beautifully replicated gilt stenciling.

 

The Camden Opera House stage

The interior was originally decorated by Willis Carleton, a lifelong resident of nearby Rockport who painted stage scenery in New York as a career.  In 1993, a hundred-year renovation of the opera house replicated Carleton's stereo relief decoration in gold and white on the stage's arch, balcony front, and loge boxes.  The auditorium itself is 36 feet by 33 feet and was originally constructed complete with a set of scenery and opera chairs.  There was a kitchen, ticket office and checkroom to the left of the main landing; and on the right were individual rooms.  Today, the layout is almost the same.

View of opera house balcony and orchestra seating

 

Opening night, June 6, 1894, featured the Boston Opera Company's performance of "Maritama", followed by a grand ball with music by the company orchestra.  Shortly after that, the opera hall was booked by the Justin Adams Co., with scenery arriving from Boston.  The local Vinalhaven fire station rented the space next for a demonstration drill and a Firemen's Ball.

 

In the early 1900's, with the advent of movies, three short movies were shown at the opera house on Saturday evenings followed by dancing to the tunes of an orchestra playing from the orchestra pit. Traveling shows continued to perform at the opera house, including the sensational (at the time) 1908 melodrama "How Women Ruin Men."  Later, in 1919, Gladys Kirk and her entourage appeared for one night only; the advertisement for their show reading "there is nothing left to the imagination."  If they had only known what the world would be like today!

Boxes at the opera house

Firemen's Balls continued to draw large crowds each year.  And, in the 1930's and 1940's the opera house hosted many big bands as locals danced the foxtrot, waltz, and later, the Lindy.  Community groups performed in minstrel shows, and local schools staged plays, speaking contests, and graduations at the opera house.  Traveling shows included appearances by Mae West, Tallulah Bankhead, Lillian Gish, and other famous performers of the day.

When Kerry Hadley, the manager of the opera house, gave me my tour, she showed me a refurbished room dedicated to Katharine "Kay" Aldridge Tucker, a legendary magazine model and star of many popular 1940's matinee serials, who later became a well-loved Camden resident.

As a thank you for the tour, I wrote a brochure for visitors to the Katharine Aldridge Tucker Room about Kay's life.  Her's is a fun and truly American story of a mischievous girl raised in genteel

Kay Aldridge as a Camden hostess

poverty who didn't know that there was such a thing as a model and had seen only a few movies before suddenly rocketing to fame as one of the world's top photographic models, and then pursuing a Hollywood film career.  

Last night there was a performance by the Maine Pro Musica Orchestra at the Camden Opera House with refreshments in the Katharine Aldridge Tucker Room at intermission.  I was invited as a guest and my brochure was distributed for the first time.  How fun is that?