If, on a crystalline March morning in 1894 you took a moment to pause as you hurried south on Union, away from noisy construction on the new Morgan fruit cannery coming to life on the lakeshore, and toward the river, if you crossed the Boardman, stood at the corner of Front and looked across the street, you’d see a still and stunning red brick and sandstone edifice just two years old. Things seem to be changing overnight, you’d think. The “Big Store” — Hannah & Lay Mercantile — on your left, already a decade old. Hannah selling you a bolt of warmer wool, a stick of Wrigley’s chewing gum, and his way to legacy. (To your right, the Bank Building’s proud tower clock an unrealized dream — still some 10 years from rising above these mud streets and wooden curbs). Shops and frame stores popping up weekly between the sturdier concerns, industry everywhere.
If you stole a deep icy breath and took in the thin light of morning gilding the rooftops of Front Street, the gable end that would rise highest (and still does) would have been hers. The new Opera Hall, City Opera Hall — the work of three brothers-in-law, Bohemians with skill in selling, in building, in providing for and crafting community. Pulled from brick and steel and timber in just five and a half short months. From nothing to something in the blink of an eye.
If you entertained a thought of last night, and regretted for a fleeting moment the last glass of rye at Sleders, if you could put the past where it belonged, in the past … then you could see that the future was hopeful. New and growing, burgeoning with possibility and progress. The sky was the limit, America was ingenious, driven, bold and striving. The sky is warming now, and the light is illuminating the frost on the panes and lintels as the gilding glides down Front Street.
Jump forward a few decades, and in the wary eye of historians of the 1920s that gilding took its light from a spurious source. Mark Twain had published a novel in 1873 — “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.” From its title, those historians named that age. The Gilded Age.
Nationally, the Gilded Age was an unstoppable train. An age defined by breakneck expansion, massive immigration, political corruption, and in the firebox of its steam engine, sincere hope in Divine Progress. In many ways, the age that gave Traverse City our City Opera House (renamed early in her history) mirrors the one we live in today. Uncertainties about massive immigration numbers — then Italians, Scots, Irish and Bohemians — were tempered by the promise of more hands to do more, build more, better. In the halls of power, control was being channeled to a precious few cabals of unexamined membership. Viewed narrowly, the Gilded Age was about opulence, show, corruption, and vanity. Gilding is, after all, only skin deep. Under the thin leaf, is simply utilitarian structure — wood, or steel, or plaster, nothing special, but structure nonetheless. With a little charity, the same period can be viewed as a time of great collective hope. While the nation suffered from severe and compounding economic disparity, the eyes of all were on the same prize. The wealthy and their relentless tale of a golden future for America served as a focusing narrative, a unified goal made the progress possible.
Between 1880 and 1890 the average wage of an industrial worker rose an astonishing 50 percent. The Gilded Age birthed modern labor unions, women’s suffrage, the temperance movement and the birth of many religious social service agencies.
As I walk south on Union toward work this ice-glazed nearly-March morning, I’m proud of our Gilded Age gathering space. I’m reflecting on the shining success of our recent gala, the force of community coming together for good. As I undertake to build a season for 2024 and 2025 at City Opera House, I’m allowing our Gilded Age history to influence my construction choices. From an insistence on virtuosity, to a real commitment to performing arts as revivifying entertainment, to an embracing of our hall as “for the people,” I’m imagining a real year of community celebration and hope.
Bohemian brothers (Bartak, Votruba, Wilhelm, to give credit where it’s due) decided that to be a true city, Traverse City needed an Opera House; they set in motion a commitment to the community. One which I’m proud to steward today. Just wait until you see what is in store. The 2024-25 season promises to be a stunner. See you at the theater.