Hearing that the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906 created many work opportunities, her father, a musician, sailed from Genoa, Italy, and arrived in New York in 1907.

Louise (Stradi) Dana, was born in Pontasserchio, (a little town near Pisa) the first child of Giulio and Mariettta Stradi. Official, rewritten San Francisco Grand Opera “First Season” history, begins September 26th, 1923 but the late Louise Dana (1904-2000), who served as unpaid secretary to the San Francisco Opera Company during the early years, had other recollections. Few realize it is Italian American Opera lovers, mostly crab-fishermen living in early San Francisco, they owe a debt of gratitude, for the first financing of a Grand Opera House in San Francisco, as per dreams spun by Gaetano Merola. The plaque honors the memory and vision of twelve original Italian-American Founders of San Francisco Opera.

War Memorial Opera and Lobby, a beautifully sculpted, three-foot-tall bronze plaque was installed and unveiled for all to see. San Francisco’s Operatic “Storia Segreta” reached a belated but beautiful finale in 2003 when at a spectacular civic ceremony and luncheon in the majestic S.F. Opera seasons may have been slow getting started. Opera’s 99th season, but without my friend Joe Brucia’s father and his friends, back in 1922, the S.F. Opera Season, after a long shutdown, opened recently in San Francisco with Puccini’s Tosca, to a fully vaccinated and masked audience of two thousand.

Puccini opera i sf 2019