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"The opportunity to sit down, I think we'll all take," says a clearly worn member of the Emerald City Opera technical crew, resting behind the light and sound table for what looks like the first time in hours.

Three days before the opening curtain on ECO's main stage production of "La Traviata," set designers, prop masters, lighting technicians and sound engineers are shouldered with the task of making sure everything looks perfect and runs smoothly when Giuseppe Verdi's masterpiece opera hits the stage in the Steamboat Springs High School auditorium.

A process about eight months in the making, designing the set for "La Traviata" began with talks between the productions director and set designer about what the story was and how they wanted to tell it, set designer Kathryn Kawecki said.

"In the case of this production, we were talking about setting it in the mid-19th century, during this period of time where science and industry was growing and growing and it was all sort of magical," Kawecki said, sitting in a near-empty auditorium in a work tank top and paint-splattered jeans.

The story has a similar sense of discovery, she said, as the main character, a Parisian courtesan named Violetta, discovers the luster of true love - before succumbing to tuberculosis.

"She's almost like a flower in the surround of iron and industry," Kawecki said of Violetta. In the set, that duality is shown in the largest pieces - French doors that are carefully molded and innocently white are set against a distant cityscape backdrop.

Once the ideas were flowing, Kawecki encountered the unique challenges presented by Emerald City Opera. A limited budget means fewer set pieces, and a high school stage means limited storage, no fly space and no room for construction.

"It's a bit of a puzzle backstage, not only to store things, but to store things where you're not going to bury them," Kawecki said. She zeroed in on the elements important to the director's interpretation and enlisted Denver's You Want What? Productions to build them. She sent digital images of what she wanted and let the professionals go to work.

That's where the budget came in: With no more than $8,500 to spend on delivery, labor and materials, Kawecki spent about a month adjusting her drafts and sending them back to You Want What?. The set arrived in Steamboat on Saturday, as Kawecki and her crew scrambled to paint it during the weekend and early in the week.

Keri Rusthoi, founder and artistic director for ECO, said the company has worked in its six seasons to overcome the challenges of its venue.

"It's a huge undertaking for a company of our size and our age to design and build our own sets, but we have no choice," Rusthoi said, explaining that no pre-made set for "La Traviata" would fit in the high school auditorium.

"All of opera is imagination-driven anyway, but having good costumes and good sets definitely helps," she said.