The Ballad of Baby Doe lives of actual historical figures Horace Tabor, Elizabeth "Baby" Doe Tabor, and Augusta Tabor, the opera tracks their lives from Horace and Baby Doe's meeting to the death of Horace. "Always Through the Changing" is a postscript ending foretelling Baby's death. Scene 1 The story begins by commenting on the riches of the Matchless Mine and on how Horace Tabor owns the whole town of Leadville, Colorado. Horace sings "It's a Bang Up Job" to the townspeople, praising his new opera house and sharing his disenchantment with his wife Augusta. During intermission at a performance at the opera house, Augusta
Baby Doe Tabor Augusta, Horace Tabor and Elizabeth McCourt Doe married secretly in St. Louis, Missouri, in September 1882. At that time both were bigamists: his divorce was questionable and hers was not yet recorded. In January 1883, Augusta sued Tabor again, and now he compensated her with real estate in Denver and stock in his mines. Tabor finally obtained a legal divorce at that time. That same month, the Colorado State Legislature appointed him to a 30-day term as United States Senator to fill a temporary vacancy because the sitting senator, Henry Teller, had been appointed a cabinet member. Baby Doe and