The Ballad of Baby Doe The Ballad of Baby Doe The Ballad of Baby Doe is an opera by the American composer Douglas Moore that uses an English-language libretto by John Latouche. It is Moore's most famous opera and one of the few American operas to be in the standard repertory. Especially famous are the title heroine's five arias: "Letter Aria," "Willow Song," "I Knew it Was Wrong", "Gold is a Fine Thing", and "Always Through the Changing." Horace Tabor's "Warm as the Autumn Light" is also frequently heard. Distinguished sopranos who have portrayed Baby Doe include Beverly Sills (Moore's favorite interpreter of the role),
Baby Doe Tabor in black; magnificent cuff buttons of diamonds and onyx ...worth 8 million dollars." Historian Judy Nolte Temple writes that it "seemed inevitable that the prettiest woman in the mining West would eventually meet the richest man." Baby Doe met Horace Tabor in a restaurant in Leadville one evening in 1880. She told him her story and that she had arrived in Leadville because of Jake Sandelowsky's generosity. Tabor gave her $5000 on the spot. Baby Doe then had a message, and $1000, delivered to Sandelowsky, in which she declared that she would not marry him. Instead, Tabor moved her to