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In March 1967, on hiatus from touring her one-woman show across America, Marta Becket and her husband came to Death Valley Junction to repair a flat tire at the gas station, located across the street from the complex. While exploring the abandoned buildings, Marta peeked through a hole in the back door of Corkill Hall, the town’s old social hall, to find a room in terrible disrepair. Wooden floors were caked with muddy remains from floodwaters and walls were streaked with rust colored stains from the leaking roof. Marta later recalled that the building spoke to her, saying, “Take me. ” She tracked down the property manager and inquired about renting the space and was told it could be rented for $45 per month as long as she was responsible for all repairs.
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Night temperatures can get to below freezing and the air is extremely dry with humidity at 10% or less. Winter rains are common but depend on the year’s rainfall (weather is so changeable that predicting this can be difficult). Although the rooms are understated and simple, guests can expect soft, fluffy towels and crisp bed-linens for a very comfortable night's sleep.
How far is Amargosa Opera House & Hotel from the center of Death Valley Junction?
Colleges, universities and community halls where she performed regularly over the previous years were now more interested in booking burgeoning rock 'n' roll acts, spoken word and other hip happenings of the time. While some ballet dancers may dream of performing in front of adoring throngs in New York or Paris, others are drawn to settings with decidedly lower wattage. In 1967, the New York dancer, who had performed on Broadway and at Radio City Music Hall, dreamed of having her own place to create and perform her works. In July of 1968, Marta began a massive project of painting a 16th-century royal audience on the walls, each with a different face.
The history of Death Valley's Amargosa Hotel and Opera House - Fox 5 Las Vegas
The history of Death Valley's Amargosa Hotel and Opera House.
Posted: Mon, 13 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Amargosa Opera House and Hotel
Beyond these maintained areas, the town of Death Valley Junction is almost a ghost town. The single restaurant, the Amargosa Cafe, was formerly operated by the Opera House and Hotel, but is no longer open. The Opera House continues Marta's legacy of celebrating art in the desert with creative acts in an inspiring venue.
King, queen, royalty, nobility, bullfighters, monks, nuns, American Indians, ladies of the night—all attend the show. The audiences even have complex stories such as the “group of royal children tended by a governess who is being courted by a gentleman seated in the balcony above.” It took Marta four years to complete the murals… then she started on the ceilings. As the tire was being repaired, Marta Becket wandered through the town. One building seemed to be calling her in particular, an old miners’ hall that had been built by Pacific Coast Borax Company in the 1920s. As Ms. Becket peeked through a hole in the back door, she immediately envisioned a theater of her own. Having wearied of staying afloat financially and emotionally in metropolitan New York City, the couple decided to inquire whether or not they could rent the theater outright that same afternoon.
McClintock’s personal connection to Marta and the Amargosa Opera House is truly remarkable. At age six, while traveling with her family in Death Valley, she was able to attend a performance of Becket in 1982. Little Jenna left so utterly mesmerized by Becket’s performance that she soon enrolled in a ballet academy, eventually performing professionally for twenty-five years, both regionally and nationally. Although Becket largely stopped performing by 2012 at the age of 88, she has appeared on stage live a few times since. In 2013, it was revealed publicly that an unscrupulous manager was allegedly not only bilking the nonprofit organization established in 1973 to help protect the property and Becket's legacy, but also mistreating Marta herself. Eventually concerned supporters came to her aid along with Inyo County Adult Protective Services due to the reports of elder abuse.
Amargosa Opera House - Visit California
Amargosa Opera House.
Posted: Sat, 01 Apr 2017 23:20:41 GMT [source]
Ashley Lee is a staff reporter at the Los Angeles Times, where she writes about theater, movies, television and the bustling intersection of the stage and the screen. An alum of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Critics Institute and Poynter’s Power of Diverse Voices, she leads workshops on arts journalism at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. She was previously a New York-based editor at the Hollywood Reporter and has written for the Washington Post, Backstage and American Theatre, among others.
Spotlight: Death Valley National Park
Today, the 16-room Amargosa Hotel welcomes travelers year round from all over the world. To ensure guests are able to enjoy the peace and quiet of the beautiful desert surrounds (including some of the darkest night skies in all of North America), the rooms do not have TVs or phones. “I went to visit this fortuneteller in New York, and she said, ‘You will be leaving New York for a very rural place, and you will be doing the best work of your life in this place,’” recounts Marta. Soon thereafter, needing a break from touring the country, she and her husband decided to go camping in Death Valley. Although the building was in disrepair, she and her husband rented the property the next day for $45 a month and renamed it the “Amargosa Opera House.” After months of fixing up the building, Ms. Becket debuted her first show on February 10, 1968.
Built between 1923 and 1925, the rooms were originally used to accommodate visiting investors of the mining company. When mining officially moved from the area in 1928, the Amargosa Hotel was remodeled and opened to the public. Although its construction was never finished, the castle is filled with hand-wrought iron and tile, custom-made furniture and extravagant antiques and tapestries. A highlight is the Chimes Tower, which contains a set of 25 carillon chimes that were set to play on the quarter-hour. The Scotts’ also had a 1,121-pipe theatre organ installed in their music room. Its melodies entertained their A-list house-guests—Betty Grable, Will Rogers and Norman Rockwell.
Sadly, in 2013 it was revealed publicly that an unscrupulous manager was not only bilking the nonprofit organization established in 1973 to help protect the property and Becket’s legacy, but also mistreating Marta herself. Eventually, concerned supporters came to her aid along with Inyo County Adult Protection Services, due to the reports of elder abuse. Legal proceedings ensued, eventually forcing the “gun-toting” manager (who on one occasion brandished his firearm at a concerned, highly respected area resident dropping in to check on Marta’s welfare) to cease all activities and vacate the property for good.
Jenna continues to perform in the area with Tecopa’s Teatro El Grande and, on occasion, at the opera house. Her ballet and pantomime bring Old World culture to a place where one would least expect it—providing a conduit and glimpse into a live entertainment tradition that is largely forgotten. The entire appeal is strangely beautiful if somewhat odd—but in the most surprisingly wonderful way. After taking over the theater, Becket and husband began the laborious chore of cleaning and repairing the space. Tom repurposed metal coffee cans into stage lights and extended the tiny stage a few feet. By early February of 1968 she was teaching local children ballet and also performing for the tiny community.
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