The white-and-gold console had to be completely refurbished, not only inside but also outside, said Gale, who is a member of the theater foundation's board of directors, and chairman of the organ-restoration committee. Patti Simon, who is not only a great organist, but also the wife of Ed Zollman, "took one look at it and said it looked like Napoleon's bedroom in King Tut's tomb."

Last fall, over the Thanksgiving weekend, Gale loaded the console in a rented truck and took it back to the Zollman's plant in Wichita. He went back to get the now-glistening black console over the Easter weekend. "It adds a whole new meaning to the notion of 'haul-iday,' " Gale joked.

In addition to the console, the organ has 18 ranks of real pipes, and then extra voices produced digitally. The pipes that are needed to produce those tones will not physically fit in the space, Zollman said, so modern technology makes it possible to create them digitally. But it takes a "bee's nest of wiring."

Installing an organ such as this involves both technique and physics, he said. The pipes are placed in two chambers, high on the sides of the stage. One is the brassy side, the other the accompaniment side. Nothing is visible from the auditorium except shutters, which can be opened to let the sound out. Tucked behind the theater's proscenium arch, are all the percussion instruments — the drums, the castanets, sleigh bells, marimba and others. They are all connected electronically to the console, which can be brought into the orchestra pit or up onstage for performances.

That's what makes these organs so great, said Gale. "They called them unit orchestras, because one person could do everything an orchestra can do."

And that's why theater supporters go to such great lengths to get them installed. "There is no other technique like it. It is an art form that is rare, unique," said Michael Ballam, director of the Utah Festival Opera in Logan, who is also working on an organ-installation project for Logan's Ellen Eccles Theatre (originally the Capitol).

That group has "nearly all" its funding in place and is in the process of doing installation-feasibility studies. "We're doing all in our power to get this glorious instrument in its rightful place," Ballam said of that organ. "One of the exciting developments is that we've located some of the pipes that were part of the Capitol's original organ."

There has been an upsurge of interest in theater organs around the country, said Ballam, as new generations are coming to appreciate what they can do. "There's nothing like the sound of air through real pipes; it's not something you can synthetically reproduce. It's like being in the presence of a live singer, as opposed to a CD or DVD. Being in the same space as a Pavarotti is never the same as watching a DVD. Sure, the CD or DVD is easier or cheaper. But that's not what we're all about."