This show is now sold out.
Phantoms of opera singers past will be invoked during a history-making performance Sunday, September 21, 2014 at 4:00 p.m. at the recently restored historic Opera House, 1674 Owens Road West in Marion. “Phantoms of the Old Opera House Come Alive!” will be presented by singers from Opera Project Columbus organized by Artistic Director Dione Bennett, an opera singer and vocal music professor for three central Ohio colleges.
The performance will mark the first time in more than a century that opera singers have sung in this Opera House, which was built after the Civil War.
The program will be an originally scripted lively interactive show that connects favorite or well-known opera songs and themes, many of which are heard excerpted on many television commercials, cartoons, shows, or as background music for movies. The jealous lover, the competitive diva, the goofball, the scoundrel and other character types will provide the music’s drama and action.
Marion Lecture Recital Club (MLRMC) has tickets on sale now for $10.00 for the limited open seating of this small Opera House. Ticket proceeds will provide scholarships for Marion Area High School Music Students and Middle School Music Students. Checks should be made out to MLRMC and sent along with the purchaser’s name, address, telephone number or email to: Carolyn Heimlich, MLRMC Treasurer, 176 Johnson St., Marion.
To make arrangements for ticket pick up, contact Heimlich at 740-387-2090 or 740-251-8106 (cell).
Co-sponsors and owners of the Opera House, Dennis and Donna Mattix, are donating the use of this historic site for this event. The Owens Station Opera House was one of numerous small Opera Houses that dotted Ohio’s and the nation’s landscapes along railroad lines. Opera singers would start out singing in Toledo, for example, and travel south by train to the next town that had an Opera House, sing for the town, stay overnight in an adjacent hotel, and then board the train again to head to their next Opera House engagement.
In addition to the Opera House, the little town of Owens Station had a general store, post office, school, train station, housing for quarry workers, and a boardinghouse/hotel. Opera singers regularly performed in the Opera House until the early 1900’s at which time the Opera House became a movie house. Part of the small balcony of box seats was converted into a projection booth. In addition to movies, vaudeville acts came through from time to time to entertain townspeople. The Opera House went into decline and closed in the late 1920’s. For many decades it was used as a farm equipment storage building.
In the early 1970’s, Dennis Mattix purchased a portion of the Owens farm that included the abandoned Opera House. In 2007, Mattix embarked on the laborious task of digging out the dried mud, cleaning up, repairing and restoring the Opera House to near original condition. Once the restoration was completed in 2011, local groups, high school class reunions, and other organizations have begun having their special events at this historic site.
For more information, contact Jo Ann R-Zimmerman at 740-389-5795.
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