The Napa Valley Register from Napa, California • 4

4A-The NAPA VALLEY REGISTER Sunday, December 26, 1993 Napa Valley JARVISES To deeply know Carmen, is the goal, said the former teacher at a French American school. I plan to use CDs, videotapes and guest speakers so it will be very live for the students. William said he expects the conservatory to provide not only professional training to the talented student, but also epjoyment for the interested public. Student performances will be made available to the general public, and to Napas primary and secondary schools at both the conservatory and the local schools. William said he also hopes to tie the festival during the last week of instruction to local events, making the conservatory a local cultural asset.

We want to reach out to Napa college and other events in town, William said. There is a real niche for us here, and I think everyone in world would want to come here to study with the masters. visitor destination, Beazley said. But the biggest winners are residents because they get to live here 365 days a year. But unlike the Mondavi project and the Opera House, the conservatory appears to have its funding in place, and will open its doors next month for its first language classes, offered free of charge.

The Jarvises say its the first step toward a future curricula of voice, music, performance, movement, production and stagecraft in related operatic arts. Beginning Jan. 18, in the already remodeled carriage house at the rear of the main building, instructor Patrick Boustiha will teach the history and literature of the French Opera. Boustiha said he will begin teaching the short story that inspired the opera Carmen, and then compare the two, studying the ethnic, social, political and economic climate that produced Carmen. people dont support the arts, it wont happen, she said.

Government has so may other things to do. When the winery was reopened in 1986, it was praised by some as a key to downtown revitalization. The conservatory is talked about w'ith the same enthusiasm today, but as a key to a new Napa, an upscale Napa. Jim Beazley, president of Conference and Visitors Bureau and former Opera House board member, says the Jarvis Conservatory is absolutely fabulous. The idea goes so perfectly with what Napa is becoming, a place where the finer things in life are appreciated, said Beazley, noting Robert Mondavis proposed Center for the Wine, Food and the Arts, the Opera House and fine restaurants.

All these things harmonize with each other, says Beazley, who predicts the conservatory and Opera House will share a mutually beneficial relationship. I think Napa is really finally joining the rest of the valley as a enthusiasm is understandable. This pre-turn-of-the-century building is more befitting of the fine arts, than fine dining. Its nice to donate money, said Leticia standing inside what used to be the Sherry Oven restaurant explaining her passion for the project. But this way, its like a child we can bring it along, helping to bring the best out of it.

We live just four miles away, so wed be close by. Leticia, who will serve as the conservatorys president, said they believe the fine arts are a societal necessity, not a fringe benefit. If we allow our day-to-day survival needs to put fine arts on the cultural endangered species list, we will lose that which makes life most interesting, Leticia says. The couple focused on opera because it incorporates a broad section of the arts voice, symphony, ballet and drama. However, intense vocal training, individual and small group, will be the core activity.

We just wanted to do something for the arts. If the construction. Since the Main Street winery and restaurant went bankrupt in the late 80s, it has sat empty, attracting transients and teens. But underneath the layers of dirt, the Jarvises saw a gem. And the more they scrubbed, the more brilliant the gem became.

You just dont find stone buildings anywhere, he said as he showed a recent visitor the 21 -inch thick native stone forming the arched doorway. While fully restored when remodeled as a winery restaurant about 10 years ago, the building is gutted inside. Wnen the bankruptcy trustees auctioned off the winery and its contents, buyers simply ripped fixtures off walls and stoves out of the floor. There is graffiti scrawled on the wallpapered walls, and part of the concrete floor has been dug up for testing. But as the sun streams through the stained glass windows, the Jarvis She moved to San Francisco without graduating from a local high school, obtained her GED and worked as a nurses aid for a home health care agency, Neu said.

Neu said her mother, who has since changed her name, moved a year or two ago to another Napa address. Register efforts to reach her through her telephone answering machine were unsuccessful. Locating Tallchief and Zelaya-Solis, a Nicaraguan immigrant, wont be easy, the FBI believes. They have shown an ability to make wide use of disguises, aliases, phony addresses, telephone numbers and identification documents, Smith said. Tallchief, who is 5 feet 8 inches and 130 pounds, has brown eyes and brown hair but wears colored contact lenses and may have her hair dyed blonde, he said.

80s with her mother, Kitty Tallchief. I was surprised, really surprised, said Nue about discovering the photo of his former tenant on Americas Most Wanted. She was such a pleasant person, a nice girl, said Neu. She was always a lot more mature than youd expect for someone just 16. The FBI said Tallchief of Seneca Indian ancestory was bom in Buffalo, N.Y., and lived there with her father, attending Catholic schools, until moving to Napa to be with her mother.

Neu said Tallchief moved in with her mother at about age 16. Something of a free spirit, she had trouble in school but had a boyfriend and lots of girlfriends who would hang around her apartment. The FBI said Tallchief has a pierced right nostril, and her left ear has been pierced 13 times. the HEART HEALTH CENTER "Eat your vegetables (707) 257-7752 From Page 1A Bay Area site. They stumbled upon the histone winery one day while driving downtown.

With its 21-foot wide, hand-hewn stone block walls and 30-foot high ceiling, it was the perfect site, offering outstanding acoustical advantages. When the $5 million renovation of the main building is complete in the summer of 1994, the conservatory will feature a 140-seat theater for student performances and a moveable stage and orchestra pit. The building will house six sound-proofed practice rooms (so students dont bother each other or their neighbors) audition rooms, classrooms and offices. William said the director of San Franciscos Opera, and New York consultants in acoustics and theater have been offering their advice on the conservator's- TALLCHIEF From Page 1A A Circus Circus surveillance camera shows the Loomis armored van, Tallchief at the wheel, driving past the prearranged pickup spot and disappearing, he said. It wasnt brain surgery, said Greenwood.

She just drove off with it. Tallchief, the $3.1 million and her apparent partner, 48-year-old Roberto Ignacio Zelaya-Solis, disappeared with hardly a trace, according to the FBI. Two weeks after the crime, FBI agents recovered the missing Loomis van, a Magnum revolver and $3,000 in $1 bills from a Las Vegas garage. Tallchief and Zelaya-Solis were last seen boarding a privately chartered jet for a flight from Las Vegas to Denver. Both were disguised as elderly people, with Tallchief arriving at the airport in a wheelchair, said Burk Smith, an FBI agent in Las Vegas.

Because of the apparent ease with which such a huge amount of money was stolen, the heist has been publicized twice on Americas Most Wanted. The TV show prompted tips by 'people reporting look-alikes, but so far the whereabouts of the two suspects is unknown, Smith said. We have no reason to believe they might have gone back to the Napa Valley, said Smith, noting that Tallchief had lived in Napa with her mother for three or four years. Yet its always possible she might have phoned a friend or been in touch with someone from your area. Stranger things have happened," Smith said.

Anyone providing information that solves the crime could be- CORRECTION NOTICE IN THE 1226, 1231, 12 AND 16 SEARS ADVERTISING SECTIONS YOU MAY RECEIVE, THE 6994 GARDEN HOSE REEL IS ADVERTISED FOR SALE. THE PICTURE IS INCORRECT. IT SHOULD HAVE SHOWN A WALL MOUNT HOSE REEL AT $9.99. WE REGRET ANY INCONVENIENCE THIS MAY HAVE CAUSED OUR Zelaya-Solis, who is 5 feet 11 inches and 180 pounds, has curly brown hair that may be dyed black and a bug-eye condition that may have been surgically corrected. He has a tattoo on his right forearm that says, Esta Vida Loca or This Crazy Life.

Its possible they could have fled to Nicaragua to make extradition difficult, but thats only one possibility, Smith said. With their access to fake documents, they have the facility to travel anywhere in the world, Smith said. The FBI, which is devoting considerable manpower to the case, remains optimistic that the perpetrators will be brought to justice. The bad guys have to be lucky every time. We have to be lucky just once, Smith said.

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Investigators believe that Zelaya-Solis had been planning the Las Vegas theft for months after hooking up with Tallchief in San Francisco earlier this year. Last spring he adopted a new identity, Julius Gabriel Sauve, complete with false indentifica-tion papers. In June, Tallchief and Sauve rented a postal box in Las Vegas. In July, they rented a Las Vegas studio apartment for $644 per month. Six weeks after arriving in Las Vegas, Tallchief applied to be a Loomis armed security worker.

Her credentials included a new Nevada firearms card and an armed security card. Her references included Sauve, whom she described as an art dealer for whom she had worked as a part-time security guard, according to Milton Brown, Loomis branch manager. Brown has a hard time reconciling his impression of Tallchief at her interview and on the job with the facts of the crime. She was very, very quiet. She struck me as being naive in some ways, Brown told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

I go back and forth. I really do. Looking at her, the way she came in, the person I interviewed and the person I worked with, I would say she had been led astray, he said. Another person who knew Tallchief was Howard Neu, who managed Royal Gardens Apartments, 2060 Wilkins in east Napa when she lived there in the late Starter Guitars 259 Includes Cable, Squire Amplifier And Squire Guitar NEW LOCATION 2999 Jefferson St. Pueblo Plaaa Napa 226-9878 come wealthy.

Loomis is offering a 10 percent reward up to $310,000 for recovered cash. When the Loomis van first disappeared, the FBI feared that Tallchief herself was a victim. For a few days it seemed that Tallchief was the victim of a kidnapping or worse, Smith said. Tallchief, hired by Loomis only five weeks before the theft, had a spotless record with no criminal convictions. No tickets, no arrest record, no criminal history anywhere.

Nothing, Greenwood said. The FBIs view of Tallchief changed when investigators intercepted fraudulent passports intended for Tallchief and Zelaya-Solis in Miami. This indicates she was in on the thing, Smith said. Zelaya-Solis, however, is believed to have masterminded the crime. It took two months of investigating before the FBI determined that the man who flew to Denver with Tallchief was Zelaya-Solis, not Julius Gabriel Sauve, an alias used by Zelaya-Solis when he was living with Tallchief in Las Vegas.

Zelaya-Solis has a long criminal history, including, most tellingly, a Loomis holdup attempt in the Bay Area on Feb. 21, 1969, the FBI said. Zelaya-Solis was convicted under the name of Pancho Agila of shooting and killing a Loomis employee during a failed robbery attempt, according to the FBI. Sentenced to life in prison, Zelaya-Solis served 17 years, receiving parole in September 1986. He was returned to prison for Napa Valley CANDLE FACTORY GIFT SHOP Gifts Candles For All Occasions Retail Wholesale Custom Designs Candle Oil Lamp Supplies and Services for Restaurants Pillars, Votives, Tapers, Glass, Holders, Brass, Unity Candles I FACTORY SECONDS I OPEN TO THE PUBLIC 255-0902 3037 California Blvd.

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