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 her husband's death, Baby Doe was still an attractive woman in her mid-forties. After her husband's death, Baby Doe stayed in Denver for a period, according to her diaries and correspondence. Why she decided to leave Denver and the society there to make a return to Leadville, in the high mountains with its cold winters, is unknown, but it almost certainly had to do with the Matchless mine. For two years she unsuccessfully tried to find investors to bring the Matchless back into production. The family may have tried to regain ownership to the Matchless mine, but documentation is fragmented,