There are only a few days remaining before my opening night of Lucrezia Borgia at the San Francisco Opera. Time has been flying by. Rehearsals have been intensive and working side by side with my wonderful colleagues has been a joy. In the few moments that I’ve had on the side outside of rehearsals, I’ve tried to make my way to a few new hot spots in the city. There are certainly many and so as a man of history, whether American history or Foreign history, I really wanted to take a visit to some of the more notable parts of town, known for their vast social impacts on San Francisco over the generations.

A few days ago I spent a wonderful time at the Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39…definitely, a really cool place for folks not from San Francisco to visit. As a Jersey boy, it reminded me a lot of my childhood and times that I spent on the boardwalk down the shore, only on an entirely different coast. More shocking to me, as this is my first adult trip to San Francisco, was how large of an Italian influence there is on this city. The fisheries, the restaurants, the boutique stores…all a welcome and wonderful surprise to witness. It all has culminated in me realizing that through this large Italian influence on this city that once was just a small trading post, Italian Opera has had a huge impact on San Francisco over the years, ever since the Opera Company’s opening 89 years ago. The greats of Muzio, Gigli, Tetrazzini, Caruso and many others all performed to mass appeal audiences 70, 80, 90 years ago as large Italian families were all in their earlier stages of migration to the United States. The tradition of Italian Opera in San Francisco is vast and wonderful; to be here performing Lucrezia Borgia, in it’s first ever production with the San Francisco Opera, in a city rich of Italian history is uniquely sweet and an honor all at once.