I didn't know at the time, 26 years ago, that by the start of the next opera season, that young man and I would be married. His shoulder-length, bushy hair and worried expression made him look rather like Beethoven. What's more, there was a phone booth on Van Ness, and the people trying to call home to see if everything was OK formed a queue.Īmong those on the sidewalk was a young man pacing silently by himself. It was a warm night in October, and the audience wanted to get as far away from the building as possible - without missing the next act, of course. We grabbed each other's hands and rode it out, like the principals in "Boheme."Īt intermission, everybody rushed outdoors. As a young college student from Podunk it got me so excited I dropped out of college to move to San Francisco and become a beatnik.Įditor: When the Earth moved, Mimi didn't miss a beat.īut their love's imperviousness to one of California's seismic events was the only thing that reassured my friends Helen, Patty and me, sitting up there in the balcony, feeling the sway, watching the chandelier quiver. The Opera House is where I left my heart.Įditor: Memories of the Opera House? Boris Christophe in 1957 as Boris Godunov. I have since moved away from San Francisco, but still consider it my home. Swenson has held a truly special place in my heart. I was completely unprepared for such an experience I assumed Domingo would be great and everyone else would sound as they did in Tucson. The magic of her singing overwhelmed me and I could not recall having heard Domingo afterward, such was her effect. Other inspections included reinforcing steel placement inspection, concrete placement inspection, proof load testing of dowels and anchors, shotcrete, high strength bolting and the placement inspection of epoxy adhesive finishes on steel plates.After the overture, Ruth Ann Swenson made her way onto the stage and began her aria. Signet provided off-site structural steel fabrications inspections and triple shift on-site structural steel welding inspections.
The annex portion had End-line supplied seismic dampers installed in the walls required fabrication inspection in Chicago, Illinois and Buffalo, New York. The project was on a time critical schedule demanding the provision and management of appropriate staff on a round-the-clock basis. 20,000 drilled-in dowels were placed during the retrofit. The major seismic retrofit designed by EQE International was a fast tracked project which consisted of extensive concrete, shotcrete and structural steel applications. The War Memorial Opera House is a 333,000 square feet building originally completed in 1936.
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