Dan's Papers - August 3, 2007

There are no falling chandeliers or unsolved crimes, but the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall does have a Phantom of the Opera. The 1880s historical theater, situated in the heart of Riverhead and recently restored to its former glory, does not have a ghost but a real live Riverhead citizen.

A. F. Wargo came to Riverhead to tend to his ailing mother. Having been born in Astoria in Queens, Andrew was a five-year old prodigy on piano and studied with many of the finest private teachers of that time. He credits Dennis Starin for helping him understand the vast expanse of composition and its power. Now at odd hours, when the hall is empty, Andrew Francis Wargo is the Riverhead Phantom of the Opera, and heads into the Vail to tickle the ivory.

Affiliated with the licensing of Pierre Cardin branding, Mr. Wargo was comfortably retired when he chose to be by his mother's side. Because of his love for music, Mr. Wargo purchased a beautiful Mason Hamlin Piano to be brought to his mother's residence in Riverhead. On that piano, Mr. Wargo would play various masterpieces for an audience of one so that her pain would be lessened by her joy of hearing her son's musical gift. After her death, Mr. Wargo stayed on the North Fork playing piano for many large and small high-end social functions and events. His list of close friends is almost equal to that of the social register. When Vail-Leavitt treasures Vince Tria, let it be known that the Music hall needed a piano Mr. Wargo instantly volunteered his own but with one stipulation. He did not want financial compensation, but instead he wanted the permission to play his piano when he desired. To do this Mr. Wargo possesses a key to the back door of the Music Hall.

Sometimes at odd hours A.F. Wargo, who studied music at Adelphi University, plays concerts to the empty rows of restored antique chairs. Sometimes with just the light of his flashlight lamp and the red exit lights around the theater, Andrew brings the ghost of the music hall back to life by playing Scott Joplin compositions, music written in the 1880s when the music hall first opened. In fact Mr. Wargo would love to perform those wonderful, lively historic tunes in the music hall, perhaps for a charity one day. He just wants to share the experience of hearing the sound of that era in a building of that era that has been restored to look and feel like it did in the 1880s when it opened.

Mr. Wargo chuckles when he talks about a young inventor named Thomas Edison playing his early invention, motion pictures, in that very theater. Andrew points out that the music hall hosts the Opera of the Hamptons as well as Jazz and Blues Music events. He loves the way the music hall feels and inspires him to play The Scott Joplin tunes and the show tunes of Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern. There he is, in almost total darkness, playing his Mason-Hamlin piano just as the Phantom of the Opera played his musical score on an old pipe organ while the theater was empty.

Today, Andrew is always about Riverhead, doing favors and chores for his many friends. He can often be heard playing those very same historical Scott Joplin pieces at Tweed's Saloon and he is also a fixture on the North and South Fork social scene, sometimes playing a requested favorite classic but usually listening to the lively gossip. It is astounding the people whose private phone numbers he has and who take his calls.

So if you are walking on downtown Main Street in Riverhead, looking to get to your parked car and it's late at night, maybe even very late at night and you think you faintly hear piano music of the 1880s gently flowing out of the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall, you won't be imagining it. Most likely it will A.F. Wargo, the Riverhead Phantom of the Opera, playing the music in only the way a gifted musician can. The faint phantom music coming from the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall is the 1880s A.F Wargo, transcending musical time.