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According to Fred Conboy, the Amargosa Opera House located in Death Valley Junction, there is a lot to see in this little berg besides open desert.
“When guests arrive to the opera house, they are amazed by the miracle of seeing Marta’s murals in the legendary Amargosa Opera House which took six years to paint. They were competed by Marta herself.”
I would say that endeavor took patience. Patience is not one of my best virtues. Even if patience is supposed to be a virtue. That concept was probably made up by someone with a lot of patience.
“Marta was a ceaseless fountain of creativity,” Conboy continued. “With her dancing, composing, and painting, which in itself was astonishing.”
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| Marta performing at the opera house - Getty Image |
So, who is this Marta whom Conboy was speaking about with such reverence?
Well, just so happens Laureen and I met her in Death Valley Junction, in the very Amargosa Opera House nearly two decades ago.
Marta Becket was born in New York City in 1924, and at the age of fourteen began ballet lessons. In a documentary entitled, Dust Devil, Marta stated that even before that age, she wanted to dance. And dance she did.
Performing at the Radio City Music Hall and on Broadway, she soon found fame and fortune. She appeared in such famous plays and musicals as Show Boat, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Wonderful Town.
She had it all in the Big Apple – but it was not what she wanted. She desired to do what she wanted to on stage without being directed about what she would do.
“I wanted the freedom to express myself,” Marta explained in Dust Devil.
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| Just one of many of Marta's dresses |
If that wasn’t a direct quote, then I am blaming my editor – sorry, Jim.
Marta started touring the United States with her one-woman show. Performing all the great ballets in small theatres across this great country.
In 1962, she met the man who would become her husband, Thomas Williams. Five years later, on the way to a ballet gig, the travel trailer they were towing blew a tire out in Death Valley, and the only place where it could be repaired was in Death Valley Junction.
Turns out, while Thomas was seeing to the repair, Marta wandered – and don’t we love wandering – saw a bunch of buildings, which included a hotel built in the 1920s by the Pacific Coast Borax mining company, and a large structure which miners had used as a gathering place called Corkhill Hall.
It was love at first sight.
“By now I had forgotten the tire,” she wrote in her autobiography, To Dance on Sands: The Life and Art of Death Valley’s Marta Becket, published in 2006. “I walked over to the building, afraid to take my eyes off it, lest it should disappear.”
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| Marta working on her beloved Armargosa Opera house - Getty Image |
It did not disappear. She and her husband bought the property and put the small community of Death Valley Junction on the map as a destination for those wanting to witness beautiful and creative performances delivered by a masterful ballerina.
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| John R Beyer in Death Valley Junction |
Many years ago, when Laureen and I met Marta, we were cruising into Death Valley and stopped by the iconic Opera House for a looky-loo.
We like to do that – to see what we can see.
The doors to the Opera House were open and we took that as a sign we were supposed to enter. It was hot outside, the month of May can be like that so close to Death Valley, and we enjoyed the coolness of the interior.
When our eyes adjusted to the dimness inside, we were amazed by the marvelous murals on the interior walls. I mean all the interior walls of the theatre. Brightly colored creations of folks from the past looking down on us and toward the center stage at the front of the theatre.
“You folks traveling?” I recall this woman, who later introduced herself as Marta, asking.
We explained our current journey and spent the next twenty minutes or so, visiting with Marta, as she told us of her past, her present, and her future.
She was graceful and polite. A few questions and a lot of interesting answers. What we took away from that brief encounter was she was one wonderfully strong woman who knew what she wanted out of life.
Simply, to perform her art without dictation by anyone but herself. She ruled in her Opera House. The plays, the music, the costumes, and the times of performances. She was in charge.
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| Museum across the street with some of Marta's costumes |
Unfortunately, there were no shows for Laureen and me to witness that trip. Marta smiled and said perhaps the next time we drove through we could see her perform.
We smiled and said that would be great.
“I should write a story about her,” I told Laureen, as we left Death Valley Junction and headed into Death Valley.
“Perhaps you should in the future,” Laureen replied.
Marta passed away at the age of ninety-two, on January thirtieth, 2017.
We never did see her perform.
Death Valley Junction came into being in 1907, when the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad was built through the Amargosa Valley. The rails were used to transport borax from nearby mines.
Originally owned by Robert Tubb, the town boasted a saloon, a store and one of those adult entertainment centers. The local miners loved the place, and it grew.
In 1914, the Death Valley Railroad started using the spot to move borax from the valley up into Amargosa Valley for shipment. Business was booming, to the point that a few years later the Pacific Coast Borax Company constructed Spanish Colonial Revival buildings in the town.
I am not sure exactly what that is, but the architect Alexander Hamilton McCulloch did and that is what Marta Becket fell in love with.
The motel and opera house are beautiful.
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| The opera house and adjoining hotel |
A year after Marta and her husband bought the property, the name of the locale was changed to Death Valley Junction.
In 1980, the town was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, as the Death Valley Junction Historic District.
Though, Marta is no longer with us, thousands of visitors still visit Death Valley Junction yearly.
According to Conboy, “We get at least one hundred and fifty to two hundred people per week stopping by. Many spend a night or two in the motel.”
Since there are no longer performances, the opera house is used for special events or for private venues, then what would make someone want to stop at this path to Death Valley?
“Guests frequently say they love stepping back in time by spending time walking around the historical complex, staying in the hotel and enjoying Marta’s painted guest rooms, or enjoying her tromp l’oeil painting in the dining room or lobby.”
I had no idea what a l’oeil painting is, I could have asked Laureen but didn’t want to sound ignorant in front of my wife.
“We have no TVs or phones in the motel rooms. In this stillness, you can hear your own heartbeat, and be awed by the total silence which the desert has to offer.”
No internet to check emails, Instagram, Facebook, play video games or listen to the latest music on Spotify. How gauche!
Conboy was not done. “Many of our guests remark how much they enjoy spending time having conversations and interactions with the children, their spouse, or friends instead of sitting together in isolation staring at their devices. Imagine that humans having interpersonal communication with each other.”
Was this guy from the twenty-first century?
Guests are often greeted by wild horses who scamper, if horses scamper, into their own personal bar behind the hotel, where hay and water are available year-round.
“I’ll take a bale of hay and a glass of cool water, if you don’t mind,” one wild Mustang was once heard ordering at the horse bar.
“Why certainly, Mr. Ed,” replied the horse bartender.
Death Valley Junction is also known for its dark skies. That is scientific lingo which means at night there are billions and billions of stars to take a gander at instead of the three which lurk about in a city. And one of those is probably a streetlamp.
Is there a lot to see at Death Valley Junction? Yes, there is. It is not a place to drive through on the way to some other place, but a locale to stop, breathe the clean air, and marvel at what one person can do who had the gumption to do it.
That was who Marta Becket was.
We only wish we could have seen her perform on stage, just once.
For further information: http://amargosaoperahouse.org/
