PRESERVING THE PAST
A QUIET SUMMER OF RENEWAL BY ERIN OSOVETS
DURING A NORMAL SUMMER in Central City, Eureka Street bustles with opera company members, tourists and residents alike. Voices float through the windows of the Martin Foundry Rehearsal Hall, and the Festival Orchestra’s warm-ups spill onto the sidewalks. But 2020, for the most part, was quiet. Without the summer Festival, the town went about its daily business, waiting out the pandemic and hoping for music to fill the streets once again. However, this year-long intermission presented an opportunity for Central City Opera to tackle a long, ongoing to-do list of preservation projects on our 27 historic properties — and friends from past and present stepped in to help. Since the grand reopening of the Opera House in 1932, only World War II and the economic recession of 1982 kept the Opera from holding an annual summer Festival. Normally, the houses and administrative buildings are occupied by artists and staff from May through August, and time to work on renovations and general upkeep is
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Friends from past and present stepped in to help hard to come by during the colder months. So, armed with a laundry list of ideas and several dozen gallons of paint, a group of Central City Opera staff and volunteers went to work. Central City Opera Music Director John Baril and Orchestra Personnel Co-Manager Brian Cook, together with renowned opera singers Emily Pulley and Jonathan Hays, both of whom are also past members of our Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Artists Training Program, formed a Central City “quarantine bubble” to live and work in the historic homes. Throughout the summer, they painted the interiors of six different properties, and Emily and Jonathan performed socially-distanced recitals in
