Hollywood has the Academy Awards. New York City has the Tonys. San Francisco has for more than a century had the opera. In the City by the Bay, opera stands as a cultural landmark to rival the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf and North Beach.
It was Sept. 26, 1923, when the curtain rose on Giacomo Puccini’s then-contemporary opera, “La Boheme,” presented by the fledgling San Francisco Opera company. On Sept. 10, 2022, in celebration of the company’s centennial season, the curtain rose on the world premiere of John Adams’ “Antony and Cleopatra” at the War Memorial Opera House. The production starred Amina Edris and Gerald Finley as Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers of the Nile.
