Opera ’s probable debut in San Francisco was in 1850, when Mathilda Korsinsky, a German-born singer, sang an aria from Verdi ’s Ernani during the intermission between a drama and a farce at the Jenny Lind Theatre.

Another view is that the melodrama of opera -with its heroic striving, pledges and betrayals, and shifting fortunes -mirrored the volatile and sometimes violent nature of life during the gold boom. ” Some scholars have explained this as the city ’s attempt to emulate the East, an assertion that San Francisco could be as cultured and sophisticated as the East and even Europe. Opera had its devotees in Chicago and New Orleans, but it was San Francisco that, as one historian has put it, went “mad for opera. In San Francisco during the gold-rush years grand opera grew into a popular entertainment. While tall tales and the Davy Crockett almanacs celebrated the rough-hewn culture of the frontier, the West was not without pretensions to elite art. A man after my own heart, Stanlee was full of interesting fun facts during our conversation.Mad for Opera.

The room itself greatly added to the decor and I advise following Gatti's lead by examining the location of your party or wedding reception before you conceptualize the theme. The place settings were elegantly simple: white with gold trim and the table was covered in a delicate gold lace. Long rectangular tables with fruit and floral (roses and pears) arrangements ran down the tables, along with strategically placed gold pillars and white candles in hurricane lamp glasses. Everything was done in shades of gold, cream, and white - creating a hazy, warm, glowing feel to the space. To my sheer and utter joy, he invited me over to the hotel's Gold Room to take a few insider pictures. On the day that I chatted with Stanlee, he had to rush off on his shiny purple vespa to the Fairmont Hotel to check on the progress of a dinner he was designing that night for the San Francisco Opera. He has an amazingly positive visual outlook on life that he applies to parties. Yesterday I introduced you to San Francisco's most innovative event planner, Stanlee Gatti who I had the delightful pleasure of interviewing last week.

Sf opera rush