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Founded in 1923, San Francisco Opera is the oldest surviving opera company on the West Coast and a leader in arts education and innovation.

It all started, according to legend, over a game of poker. In his travels across the United States, the Neapolitan conductor Gaetano Merola had noticed that San Francisco audiences hungered for opera.

Over a card game in the North Beach neighborhood, an idea took hold: Why not give San Francisco its very own resident opera company? Merola rallied local leaders and music lovers, and soon — on September 26, 1923 — the curtain rose on a new beacon in the art world: San Francisco Opera.

Starting with that very first performance of “La Bohème,” San Francisco Opera established itself as destination for world-class talent and incomparable artistry.

Artists like Leontyne Price and Birgit Nilsson would arrive to make their American stage debuts. New operas like “Dead Man Walking” and “Appomattox” would take shape under its proscenium. And new technology like supertitles and simulcasts would be adopted early on to make opera more accessible for everyone.

Matthew Shilvock leads the company as its seventh general director, having assumed the role in August 2016. He succeeds company founder Gaetano Merola (1923-1953), Kurt Herbert Adler (1953-1981), Terence A. McEwen (1982–1988), Lotfi Mansouri (1988–2001), Pamela Rosenberg (2001–2005) and David Gockley (2006–2016).

He is joined by the leadership of music director Eun Sun Kim, who follows in the footsteps of previous music directors including Sir John Pritchard (1982-1989), Sir Donald Runnicles (1992-2009) and Nicola Luisotti (2009-2018).

Come visit us in our historic 1932 home, the War Memorial Opera House, the first municipally owned opera house in the United States — and one of the last Beaux-Arts buildings to be built in the country. Or find us out and about in our community, where we hold free events like Opera in the Park. To learn more, please visit sfopera.com.

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