I love experimenting with different film and cameras in the desert! Things can get a little tedious otherwise. After seeing Badwater Basin, we drove out to see the Amargosa Opera House, just outside Death Valley National Park on the California/Nevada border in a place called Death Valley Junction.
Knowing I’d gotten a photo this interesting would have been enough for me to say I’d been to the opera house in the desert, but since this was film, I had no way of knowing what my little camera held. And besides, there was some activity around the hotel that is connected to the opera house. We walked over to the lobby to see what was going on.
Once in a lifetime experience awaits you in a tiny town known as Death Valley Junction, for this is the home of the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel. For more than 40 years, Marta Becket has lived and shared her art and dreams with those fortunate enough to find this wonderful and magical place. Located a few miles west of the California-Nevada border, near Death Valley National Park, no journey to this part of the world would be complete without a visit to this unique and inspiring destination.
Sadly, Marta passed away earlier this year. But a young lady was working the front desk and for $5 offered to show us and three other women around. And, we did indeed get inside the opera house, a fully functional theater with a stage and hand-painted audience on the walls - by the multi-talented Marta - for those performances she would give when no one was around to attend. When you run an opera house in the middle of a desert, that’s likely to happen on occasion.
While we were allowed to take photos inside the opera house, I’m not going to post them here. This is a road trip gem worth making the trek to see for yourself. The hotel and opera house will live on post-Marta. I think I’ll stay there next time.
Read more about Marta Becket and the Amargosa Opera House here. And, since I’ve been mentioning movies filmed in Death Valley, I should point out that this building was used for exteriors in David Lynch’s Lost Highway.
