Opera House Loses Voice in Tragi-Comedy : New England: Building straddles the international border between Vermont, which says theater must conform to 20th Century fire codes, and Canada, which contends its historical heritage must be preserved. So the show can’t go on.

The story of the Haskell Opera House couldn’t be an opera--there is no music, although its trustees are singing the blues.

Call it a tragi-comedy.

This is no ordinary 400-seat theater. It straddles the U.S.-Canadian border in Derby Line and Rock Island, Quebec. And that complicated location has kept the opera house dark for more than a year and a half.

The problem is this: The building is 90 years old, and Vermont officials say it must be improved to make it safe.

Nymphs are painted on either side of the stage, but the Vermonters say the auburn-haired one at stage right must go so that fire exits can be installed in the wall where she is painted.

Non, says the Quebec Ministry of Culture, which would pay 40% of the renovation costs. The artwork and architecture can’t be degraded because they are the historical essence of the structure.

“The fire and safety people don’t have the same view of anything as do the cultural affairs people,” said trustee John Mahoney, a Vermont native who now lives in Rock Island. “The problem is trying to bring a building this old into the 21st Century and keep it true to its heritage.”

Mahoney and the other trustees don’t quite know what to do. They want to have the renovations complete in time to reopen for the 1996 summer season.

They need the money from the culture ministry. But until they figure out a way to make the building safe they can’t finalize their plans, much less start raising the rest of the money for the project, which could cost $400,000.

The building that houses the opera and library has become world famous because of its peculiar location: The stage of the upstairs opera house is in Canada and most of the audience is in the United States.

Since the opera house’s first performance in 1904 it has been used in the summer for almost weekly concerts and plays. The library on the first floor remains open year-round and has been unaffected by the dispute.

A rear exit has been cut through the two-foot granite walls on the first floor and a ramp built to make the building wheelchair-accessible.

The problem is the upstairs, and trustees agree it must be made safer.

The fire escape is unusable. To escape in an emergency people would have to break through a window, climb out onto a ledge and climb down a narrow iron ladder set in the outside wall.

One proposed solution was to open holes in the wall to the right of the stage and build a fireproof hallway to a fire escape.

“The architect for cultural affairs did not want us to punch a hole in the wall,” Mahoney said. “He felt it would interfere with the aesthetics of the building.”

An official at the Cultural Ministry in Sherbrooke, Quebec, pointed to Quebec’s Cultural Property Act of 1972, which forbids the destruction or alteration of designated buildings. The opera house is so designated.

Officials with the Vermont Department of Labor and Industry, the Quebec equivalent, and the ministry of culture met last fall to try to work out a solution. They were unable to find common ground and the opera house, which hosted its last performance in 1993, has stayed silent.

“You can’t go to either extreme. You can’t totally ignore [the danger] and put 400 people up there. If something happens someone will get hurt,” said Vermont Assistant Fire Marshal Robert Mackin.

“If we say, ‘Let’s put in all kinds of stuff,’ that becomes very expensive and has negative impacts” on the character, he said. “It’s a very difficult situation.”

Whatever the solution, trustees are eager to do something, Mahoney said.

“It’s left a real cultural void on the border,” he said.