Comedy and tragedy . . . a play of ongoing themes in the lives of "confidence men" who held positions as bankers, educators, merchants and vestrymen in South Bethlehem, and who ruled culturally from their Fountain Hill mansions during the last decades of the 19th century. With little to do after dinner in their well-appointed dining rooms, "parlor theatricals" became a perfectly respectable form of entertainment at home. Just when these Victorian "sentimentalists" yearned for something grand, builder Abraham Yost came to their rescue.

In 1874, Yost owned prime real estate on Wyandotte Street between Five Points and West Fourth Street. On this lot, he built five, three-story brick structures, which housed apartments above retail shops on street level. Anchored on the corner of West Fourth Street, Yost built his "palace," the Fountain Hill Opera House, which was attached to his string of five buildings known as "Palace Row."

Yost's enterprise had been created under the auspices of 19 prominent committee members, including bankers G.B. Linderman and E.P. Wilbur, related to Asa Packer by marriage or blood, and Nativity Cathedral vestrymen Robert H. Sayre and his father, William. Five days before it debuted, the committee approved of the commodious opera house.

On Feb. 14, 1876, opening night had its detractors: as coachmen atop their gleaming carriages arrived at the opera house doors, impeccably dressed patrons were pelted with rain that soaked their top hats and drenched their fur muffs, not to mention their mud splattered shoes. During such weather, carriages slogged through a gooey mixture of dirt, horse manure, urine and the remains of whatever had died in the streets.

Once inside the 1,500-seat opera house, composed patrons were dazzled by the opulence of the horse shoe balcony, the crimson-covered seats with walnut arms on the sloping parquet, the 60 musicians tuning in the orchestra pit, the impressive boxes painted sky-blue, ashes of rose, buff and vermillion - and the convenient restrooms. Others viewed large portraits of Shakespeare, Mozart and Beethoven illuminated by gaslight.

The evening opened with German-born conductor Theodore Thomas who lead his New York orchestra in a program of classical music selections, including Richard Wagner's latest hits.

For the next seven years, Fountain Hill Opera House had become the apex of theatrical entertainment in the Lehigh Valley. In the bittersweet year of 1884, when Abraham Yost sold out and moved on, Opera House committee member E.P. Wilbur jumped at the chance of owning the opera house - and purchased it at sheriff's sale, then hired a staff to manage it.

Overlooked were the boxes and bits of scenery piled atop the basement heater. In the early morning of Oct. 7, 1884, innocuous wisps of smoke suddenly burst into a conflagration that quickly consumed the entire wooden floor above. By the time firemen arrived, inadequate water pressure did little to help extinguish the blaze, which had already shot up 54 feet through the ceiling, past the roof and could be seen far beyond Bethlehem.

By morning, builder J.S. Allam pulled down what walls remained of the burned opera house, and half of the merchants took their losses from damage to Palace Row.

Wilbur planned a new four-story opera house with the addition of an apartment house on West Fourth Street. As the opera house neared completion in 1888, E.P. Wilbur experienced yet another "annus horribilis" with the death of his 17-year-old son Merit in a train crash, followed by the death of his brother, Warren W. Wilbur three months later in June. Now in full mourning, E.P. wisely appointed his eldest son, Warren A. Wilbur to take the reins as "bon vivant" on opening night.

On Sept. 8, history repeated itself when patrons again battled inclement weather. The apartment house attached to the opera house on West Fourth Street later became the Wyandotte Hotel.

By the turn of the 20th century, bearded "confidence men" were replaced by clean shaven corporate moguls. The opera house featured burlesque and vaudeville acts and the Wyandotte Hotel reverted back to an apartment house. When "moving pictures" became the rage, the old opera house adapted to the times, was renamed The Globe Theater and sported a facelift in 1926. During this incarnation, The Globe sadly turned into a "white elephant" after WWII-and by 1961, the theater was forced to close.

The initial event that devastated the former opera house in 1884 recurred on Aug. 13, 1983, when a "suspicious" fiery blaze totally erased the Globe Theater along with the adjoining apartment house. Though Palace Row survives to this day, any material evidence of the once-opulent corner in South Bethlehem's history lies somewhere beneath the paved parking lot - and within our imagination.