MARK WAITE / PVT Significant damage to the interior of the Amargosa Opera House was done when a car smashed into the tourist attraction Sunday. Advertisement

DEATH VALLEY JUNCTION, Calif. -- Marta Becket, the singer and ballerina at the Amargosa Opera House, got the knock on the door she always dreaded at 3:15 a.m. on a cold and windy night last Sunday.

It was the California Highway Patrol, informing her a vehicle had struck the opera house. She was advised to get someone to put something over the hole in the wall to prevent thefts.

A handyman came out and spent five hours doing some makeshift repairs Sunday morning. A pile of rubble sits on the right side of the stage. Boards are propped up against the wall, but there's still a gap letting the sun shine in.

The Spanish adobe type building near the junction of California Highways 127 and 190, was originally built by the Pacific Borax Co., in 1924 as a social center named Corkill Hall. It had been vacant since 1948 until Becket renovated it as the Amargosa Opera House in 1967.

Becket spent four years painting the murals in the late 1960s, early 1970s. The crash damaged a door and took out all but the head of the mural of Madame Butterfly next to it. A mural on the other side of the door honoring Russian dancer Boris Gudonov is cracked.

Fortunately the collision halted the driver, who, if he had kept on going, would have hit the piano and the stage.

Becket said it was also fortunate telephone service wasn't disrupted, as it was three weeks previously.

Seth Michael Shoeck, 21, of Morenci, Ariz. was arrested by the California Highway Patrol for driving under the influence of alcohol. Luckily for the opera house, he wasn't behind the wheel of a truck. His 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix was heavily damaged on the driver's side, the California Highway Patrol reported.

"It's tragic," Becket said. "I'm thinking about having a barrier built along the sidewalk to keep that from happening again."

Becket had finished a sit-down performance Saturday night. She's recovering from a bad knee and can't do the pirouettes and other dance routines. She started the Saturday performance entertaining the crowd by singing "On With The Show," in memory of her career on Broadway.

Audience members usually stay around until about 11 p.m. asking questions, she said.

Like the song goes, it will be on with the show this Saturday night as usual at the Amargosa Opera House. It's also on with the repairs, which have been done before to the structure, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

"I've done a lot of restoring in the opera house," Becket said. "We've had rain come down the spouts on both sides of the theater. It'd lead right down to the bases of the murals."

"You can't tell where I restored it," she said. "What I do is chip off the excessive paint that is loose. Then once it's all secure, I get Elmer's glue and spread it all over that area."

Becket then goes over the damaged area and repaints it. She'll probably do the same with the mural of Boris Gudonov.

"I heard it from the cop who rapped on the door. I thought this is a nightmare and I've often thought of something like that. I saw a truck turning that corner with cargo and I thought it was going to tip over," Becket said.

"What I worry about is somebody hitting that piano. That's a priceless instrument," she said.

Becket said it isn't the first time she lost murals she painted.

"I wake up in the morning and it hits me like a nightmare. People ask me, did I cry? No, I'm stoic about it because it happened to me so many times," she said.

Caretaker Mary Lee Chavez said a tour bus of French-speaking tourists stopped Monday morning while passing through from Death Valley National Park, hoping to see the opera house. It's normally only open during shows.

Numerous tourists have been amazed at the love Becket put into the murals and the opera house inside.

"People say how did you have the time to do this? That's what time is for," Becket said.