Opera to return to Granville

By Christina Scanlon

There was a time an impressive stone and brick building flanked the intersection at Main and North streets.

Over the years it housed a millinery, an ice cream parlor, the Electric and Gas Co., Butter-Nut Bread, among many other services. Its original purpose, however, began in 1901, when the Pember Opera House drew visitors to its 800-seat theater.

It was torn down in the early 1970s, now making room for a parking lot.

As the Slate Valley Museum prepares for next week’s return of opera to the village, hosting a Friday night Italian Opera with Hubbard Hall, Krista Rupe, museum executive director, explained a connection between opera, the quarrymen and well-known regional photographer Neil Rappaport.

It was Rappaport’s accidental encounter, overhearing opera music from the Evans’ Brothers Quarry more than 40 years ago, that led him to photograph the quarrymen of the area.

Rappaport, who died in 1998, discussed the event when the museum opened in 1995, according to the museum’s website:

“I began photographing the slate industry, its methods, and its working people during the late sixties and early seventies by accident. On a Saturday afternoon, my car broke down next to the Evans pit, from which the sounds of Italian opera could be clearly heard. Looking over the edge, I could see a lone rock man shoveling rubbish, the radio in his lunch bucket playing the Saturday afternoon opera from the Metropolitan. I knew I should photograph there,” he said.

The lone rock man was Vince Covino, and Rappaport developed a lifelong friendship with him.

A collection of Rappaport’s photographs can be found today in the museum.

The Pember Opera House is said to be the second such building constructed in the village; the first is currently under-renovation on the corner of Main and Church streets, just two doors down from the former Pember Opera House. A brick building in between has also been removed.

Originally called Bardwell Hall, the building – which most recently contained a Curves gym and a restaurant – was built around 1870.

It suffered damage from a fire in 1886, underwent renovations and was later named Norton Hall.

Little information could be obtained through records at the Pember Library and Museum or in Granville Sentinel archives showing the original building offered operas.

In the late 1800s and into the early 20th century, it was quite common for communities to have what were called “Opera Houses” that hosted a variety of events such as plays, musical production or speaking events.

An 1886 map by Lucien R. Burleigh, from Troy, can be found in the Library of Congress archives that titles the building solely as “The Opera House.”

Evidence of plays or other such productions can be found in playbills or advertisements in the Granville Sentinel archives.

A theatrical guide published in 1900 shows Norton Hall was still in operation. The book details the dimensions of stages in theaters around the country, along with their locations, proximity to train stations and hotels and populations of the communities in which they reside.

That first theater seated 500 people.

The museum’s opera July 31 will offer seating for far fewer, but is still to be a “hot ticket,” said Rupe.

The backdrop for the cellist, violinist and soprano vocalist for the opera is the 1951 Mack truck on display in the museum.

Tickets can be purchased for $10 at Slate Valley Museum or by visiting www.slatevalleymuseum.org.