Then she got the idea to paint the walls of the opera house with an imaginary audience: nuns, courtiers, courtesans, popes, dukes. The audience would often be five or six people and if nobody came, as happened frequently, Marta danced anyway. In the middle of the desert, by herself, she danced anyway. So she and her husband packed up, moved, rented the dance hall and opened the opera house.ĭeath Valley Junction at one point had a population of two, and has topped out over the years at roughly 20. While their car was being fixed, she peeked through the window of a dilapidated dance hall, deserted since mining days, and saw her future: her unlived life, her destiny. 1924), a New York ballerina, singer, painter and pianist on a road trip to California with her husband, stopped in Death Valley Junction with a flat tire. At the age of 84 at that point, she performed only Saturday nights. I never actually saw Marta - the opera house’s founder, owner and, for more than four decades, its star solo performer.

Several springs ago, I took a road trip to Death Valley, stayed at the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel and fell in love with Marta Becket.

Marta becket amargosa opera house