By Patricia Villers, Register Staff

DERBY — Valley Arts Council President Rich DiCarlo said Halloween is an ideal time to showcase spooky art and hunt for ghosts in what some say is a haunted building.

He is more than happy to show off a photo of “ghost-like figures” that he snapped inside the historic Sterling Opera House, the long-vacant 19th century building on Elizabeth Street.

DiCarlo, who also serves as chairman of the city’s Cultural Commission, took the photo in 2007, but thought he lost it when his comptuer crashed. He discovered that since he had e-mailed the photo, it was still stored on a server and he was able to retrieve it.

The photo depicts a shadowy figure of what looks like a woman wearing a Victorian-era dress, standing in the theater balcony. Next to “her” is a smaller figure that could be a person seated behind a balcony railing.

DiCarlo said the photo may be two years old, but “we figured what better day to announce the discovery than on Halloween.”

The photo is in a glass case in the arts council’s Gallery@37, a small gallery at 37 Elizabeth St. filled with various kinds of artwork produced by council members.

The Halloween-themed exhibit will be up for a week, DiCarlo said.

In August, paranormal expert Richard Felix of Derby, England, former host of Britain’s “Most Haunted” television show, arrived as part of a trip he is making to visit all of the Derbys in the world.

DiCarlo said he was with Mayor Anthony Staffieri when Staffieri gave Felix a tour of the opera house. A photo was taken in a dressing room, and the photo shows what looks like a woman wearing a Victorian-style dress similar to what is in his 2007 photo.

DiCarlo said as far as he can determine, the opera house was never the scene of anything tragic. One theory is the shadowy female figure is the widow of Charles Sterling, after whom the opera house is named. Sterling died before the building was completed. DiCarlo said “she’s the common denominator” connected to the building and may be watching over it. Continued...

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DiCarlo said a popular paranormal investigation TV show has expressed an interest in visiting Derby to shoot an episode.

“I have my evidence, and people can read into it what they want,” DiCarlo said.

Patricia Villers can be reached at pvillers@nhregister.com.

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