King Opera House - The Ghost of The Opera House

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.

Read more about this topic:  King Opera House

Famous quotes containing the words ghost, opera and/or house:

    Her voice is thin and her moan is high,
    And her cackling laugh or her barking cold
    Bring terror to the young and old.
    O Molly, Molly, Molly Means
    Lean is the ghost of Molly Means.
    Margaret Abigail Walker (b. 1915)

    The real exertion in the case of an opera singer lies not so much in her singing as in her acting of a role, for nearly every modern opera makes great dramatic and physical demands.
    Maria Jeritza (1887–1982)

    [My father] was a lazy man. It was the days of independent incomes, and if you had an independent income you didn’t work. You weren’t expected to. I strongly suspect that my father would not have been particularly good at working anyway. He left our house in Torquay every morning and went to his club. He returned, in a cab, for lunch, and in the afternoon went back to the club, played whist all afternoon, and returned to the house in time to dress for dinner.
    Agatha Christie (1891–1976)