The Ghost of The Opera House
Believers in spirits have stated that a ghost will drift back to what anchored it to earth. As the local legend in Van Buren goes, a young actor with the King Opera House during the early 20th century fell in love, and had planned an escape via train at the Van Buren depot while trying to run away with the daughter of a local doctor. Some friends of the doctor saw the couple at the train station, and phoned the doctor to inform him of what was going on. The doctor instantly ran to his horse and buggy to retrieve his daughter from the train station. Before the evening ended, he ended up whipping the young man to his death. The daughter ran off, never to be seen again.
Janice Cochrane, a previous owner of the opera house and writer/director of an original play based on the legend, told the state Parks & Tourism Department that the actor's ghost was first seen by a musician and set designer during the first production of the reopened theater in 1979. Other sightings, including one by the director of another play, have been cited as recently as 2000. At least one director is said to have also visited with the spirit.
The ghost is said to materialize, dressed in a top hat and Victorian style coat with a long cape. Cochrane has stated that once after all the actors left from a rehearsal of her play, and only she remained, that she felt as if someone else was in the theater with her. The feeling she described was that it was almost as if the hairs were standing up on the back of her neck. Though Cochrane said she felt like the ghost was present, whether the King Opera House is haunted or not may never be known.
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Famous quotes containing the words ghost, opera and/or house:
“The horn, the hounds, the lank mares coursing by
Under quaint archetypes of chivalry;
And the fox, lovely ritualist, in flight
Offering his unearthly ghost to quarry;”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“The opera isn’t over till the fat lady sings.”
—Anonymous.
A modern proverb along the lines of “don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.” This form of words has no precise origin, though both Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (16th ed., 1992)
“In relation to God, we are like a thief who has burgled the house of a kindly householder and been allowed to keep some of the gold. From the point of view of the lawful owner this gold is a gift; From the point of view of the burglar it is a theft. He must go and give it back. It is the same with our existence. We have stolen a little of God’s being to make it ours. God has made us a gift of it. But we have stolen it. We must return it.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)