Sacramento Opera Guild

Mission
The mission of the Sacramento Opera Guild is to develop and cultivate a wider public in­terest in opera and its allied arts, contribute to their support, give assistance to operatic, musical, and cultural programs and activities of an educational nature.

About
The Sacramento Opera Guild was founded in October 1947, with the late Mrs. H.J. Mc­Clatchy serving as the first chairperson. At that time, the Opera Guild was the “social arm” of the opera. In 1952, the Guild, with as­sistance from the Saturday Club, became re­sponsible for bringing annual performances of grand opera from San Francisco to Sacra­mento. The Sacramento county and city gov­ernments, businesses, patrons of the arts, and an ever increasing Opera Guild mem­bership enthusiastically supported opera.

Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the Guild presented performances by the San Francisco Opera in conjunction with numer­ous concerts, special events, and education programs. During the 1975–76 season, the Guild introduced “puppet opera” to area schools, reaching 20,000 elementary school students through the sixth grade and intro­duced Brown Bag Opera Alfresco in the am­phitheater of William Land Park. In addition, the Guild was responsible for brining two of the twentieth century’s most renowned op­era stars to Sacramento, soprano Dame Joan Sutherland and soprano Beverly Sills.
Other activities of the Guild included “An Evening of Opera Favorites,” chartered op­era trips, spring opera theater, Met Auditions, Opera Docents and Speakers’ Bureau, Op­eralogues, Opera Singers in Concert, schol­arships, and a spring musical extravaganza.
Perhaps the most important development to occur in the early days, was the birth of the Sacramento Opera Association, which began to locally produce opera in April 1981 with Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. Thanks to the dedi­cation of the Sacramento Opera Guild, the Sacramento Opera Company thrived.

The Guild has an exciting future in store with several new programs and events through­out the coming year. We invite you to join the Sacramento Opera Guild and help support opera in the Sacramento region by becom­ing a member today! Annual memberships are just $35.

Questions about joining? Contract Chris Seward, Sacramento Opera Guild President at sewardchris@yahoo.com.