What a loss to Rome on the very last day of 1919. The Nevin Opera House burned. Built in 1880, it stood where that karaoke joint is now. It featured concerts by the New York Symphony, the Boston Symphony, and tyhe Dresden Symphony. There were plays and operas. The last show was a movie, The Birth of A Nation, in 1916. Then it stood empty till the big fire.
Opera Alley, the only thing left of the landmark, still connects through to West First (and now the Forum civic center). The city has plans to make a bit of a museum out of the alley.
But don't you wish we could still see plays and concerts in that magnificent building!
In 1916, Thomas G. Moses, scenic artists and president of the Chicago scenic studio Sosman & Landis, delivered scenery to the renovated Rome Opera House. That year it briefly became a combination house, showing both vaudeville and motion pictures. Thomas G. Moses wrote, “I did a drop curtain for Rome, Georgia, and several exteriors.” Unfortunately, the business venture did not succeed. By November 25, 1916, the “Atlanta Constitution” reported,
ReplyDelete“Neglected Bank Roll in Attempt to Start Vaudeville in Rome.
Rome, Ga., November 24. – (Special) – Ross Conkling, and Atlanta theatrical man, who endeavored to open the Rome Opera House as a vaudeville and motion picture theater here, neglected one important detail necessary to such operation, to-wit, a bank roll. He was given credit by actors, film operators, stagehands, print shops, newspapers, and the like, but the box receipts on the opening night were attached by Mrs. Amanda Gray, one of the vaudeville actors, who declares that he is without funds. An orchestra of seven pieces and five members of a vaudeville company are stranded here” (page 4).
I am currently writing a book about the studio of Sosman & Landis, posting daily installments to www.drypigment.net. This is the reason, I stumbled across the lovely Rome Opera House in 1916. Lovely postcard!
Thanks for this info!
ReplyDelete