Its absolutely GORGEOUS!!!I saw it while going through the SFB site.<BR>Are ALL SFB performances going to be here???

Yup! And it is gorgeous! The lines of sight and climate control are not as good as NYCB's State Theater, but it is definitely a charming and magical theater.

I always feel that I am enjoying a rare privilege and honor to be there....

I remember touring it one day, many years ago, and it certainly is a special place.

It is everything that an opera house should be. When I worked for the SFOpera and walked into that building everyday to go to work, sometimes I couldn't believe I worked at a place so beautiful and grand.

Icant imagine wearing jeans to that place.<BR>are SFB ballets performed there too???

Bravo Angela, I agree. Being a native San Franciscan this is the theater that I grew up with. We always used to dress up to attend the different ballet companies that would be here on tour. To me,the theater is like church, I can't wear jeans there either.<BR>

When I was a performer, I toured the beautiful War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, yearly. I loved it. I even liked the back stage before the expansion and renovation of the dressing rooms.<P>The War Memorial Opera House was prominent in a tv movie about Jackie O. It was the substitute for an Opera House in Paris, where Mrs. Kennedy made an historic tour with her husband.

It was also featured a couple of years ago in "Tales from the City" (I think on PBS), which was a TV adaptation of Armistead Maupin's book about SF in the 70's.<P>Yes, the SFBallet does perform there.

Actually, I wear jeans almost every time I go there. It really just depends on why your there, after all it is just a building.(Beautiful architecture though.) Of course when I go I'm usually working.<P>------------------<BR>Always remember that life is just a game and you need to keep playing!<BR>

Yes, Angela, all SFB in-season performances are at the Opera House.

Thanks buds!

I took my niece to the War Memorial Opera House recently -- it was her first visit to the opera house and also to the ballet. Previously she'd only seen blockbuster musicals live in the theatre, and she looked at the stage and said, "It's so SMALL." I explained that it was built to accommodate opera and dance, not gigantic chandeliers, helicopters, replicas of the Titanic, etc......<P>I dress for comfort as a rule when attending, but I generally stop short of jeans, although I see plenty of others who don't.

My mother was -- and is -- a balletomane, so when I was a child, we went to the Opera House for the early tours of the Bolshoi and Kirov, as well as the Royal Ballet, ABT and the Royal Danish ballet, and, of course, SFB, all at the Opera House.<P>We didn't have much money, so we mostly got standing room tickets, which I still get even now. Occasionally my mother resorted to shadier methods of seeing ballets, such as "second-acting" or else buying one ticket, then collecting stubs from friends who were also attending, and distributing them to the rest of the family, who were waiting outside the building.<P>I first got to know the backstage area thanks to my mother's habit of sneaking backstage after performances. As I got older, I decided this was invasive and stopped doing it, but when I was a little kid, it was pretty exciting to see the likes of Plisetskaya, Maximova and Vasiliev up close and personal.<P>The most extreme method of sneaking backstage was to wait for the tiny window of opportunity when the musicians had cleared out and there were still enough people in the audience to hide us from the ushers, then jump into the orchestra pit (oh, to have young knees again!) and run like hell. One time I was the only person to make it over the top, and I found myself lost backstage. Someone asked me what I was doing there, and since it was a Bolshoi performance, I feigned ignorance and spouted off a few Russian phrases I knew, and was directed to the dancers' dressing rooms!<P>I got my first legitimate knowledge of the backstage area when I was 16 and got to be an onstage extra for the Royal Ballet's "Swan Lake" and "Romeo and Juliet."<P>For various reasons, there was a period of about 20 years when I never set foot in the Opera House. Then, a few years ago, I met my current S.O. He was interested in seeing ballet, so we went to an SFB performance. It was a wonderful feeling to step back into a place that was so familiar and so beautiful. Best of all was seeing the theatre in all its newly-gilded glory, as I hadn't been there since long before the earthquake. Since we have such a wonderful resident ballet company, I expect I'll be going to the Opera House regularly for a long time to come.

Perhaps a little photo will help others visualize this architectural treasure:<P> <BR>Photo Terrence McCarthy