War Memorial Opera House
Beaux-Arts opera house of 1932, home to San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet.
The War Memorial Opera House opened on 15 October 1932 with a performance of Puccini's Tosca and forms part of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, built to honour those who served in the First World War. It was designed by Arthur Brown Jr., architect of the neighbouring City Hall, working with the theatre specialist G. Albert Lansburgh. The Beaux-Arts exterior of granite and Sierra white stone faces Van Ness Avenue across from City Hall, with a colonnaded loggia and a tall arched foyer behind it.
The auditorium seats about 3,100 across the orchestra, boxes, grand tier, dress circle and balcony, beneath a coffered ceiling and a large aluminium starburst chandelier. It was the first municipally owned opera house in the United States. In 1945 the building hosted sessions of the conference that drafted the United Nations Charter, and in 1951 the Treaty of San Francisco with Japan was signed here. A seismic retrofit closed the house for the 1995-96 season. It remains the home of San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet.
Highlights
- Arthur Brown Jr.'s Beaux-Arts front facing City Hall on Van Ness Avenue
- Barrel-vaulted grand foyer and the auditorium's aluminium starburst chandelier
- Site of the 1945 United Nations Charter conference sessions
- Resident home of San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet
