2018 | FLOWER GIRLS
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Caroline Rose Morris Atkinson
Madeline Taylor Darré
Madeleine Taylor Hunt
Margaret Grace Mulvihill
Claire Elizabeth Boland
Everdina Wilhelmina de Koning
Rhys Elizabeth Jansen
Emma Ruth Murphy
Grace Armour Buyers
Therese Choquette DeLine
Margot Pease MacKenzie
Hadley Jane Nolan
Caroline Elizabeth Caplis
Lucille Marian Egan
Larissa Elizabeth Martin
Aubyn Roning Roemer
Kathleen Cecily Coors
Avery Delaney Hamilton
Alexandra Perry Mayer
Mathilde Grace Von Thun
Claire Beth Lathrop Crossman
Elsie Bell Hauser
Julia Jane McDonald
Payton Currigan Waters
Julia Amélie Danos
Sarah Ann Hibbeln
Máire Eileen McHugh
The Central City Opera Flower Girl Presentation is the oldest debutante ceremony in Colorado. This special Central City Opera tradition began in 1932 at the grand re-opening of the Opera House in the midst of the Great Depression. Two strong-willed women with powerful pioneer roots—Anne Evans and Ida Kruse McFarlane— engaged key members of the community and founded the Central City Opera House Association. With great vision, they created a summer music festival, bringing world-class theatrical and opera artists to the stage—a tradition that continues to this day. Two young ladies, Nancy Kountze and Elaine Oakes, were presented as the first Flower Girls. They often watched the rehearsals of the inaugural production of
the play Camille and were asked to pass out nosegays to members of the audience at intermission. Those bouquets were tossed across the footlights at the end of the production, much as the miners had tossed gold coins onto the stage during curtain calls in the 1880s. Prior to each Opera Festival, young women from prominent Colorado families are invited to be Central City Opera Flower Girls. A dynamite blast celebrating the rich mining history of Central City heralds their presentation and the church bells ring while the Flower Girls and their fathers dance the traditional “Yellow Rose Waltz” on Eureka Street in front of the Opera House. Patrons still receive flower nosegays to toss on stage, celebrating the beginning of another Opera Festival.
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