Dear Readers,
A September selection of “Labor” related Italian Connections:
Academy Award winner Harry Warren (1893-1981), was born Salvatore Guaragna in Brooklyn and was the son of a Calabrian boot maker.
One of Hollywood’s most successful and prolific composers during the 30s, 40s and 50s, he wrote “Chattanooga Choo Choo”, I Only Have Eyes For You”, “A Love Affair to Remember” and “That’ s Amore” among many other songs. Between 1935 and 1950, he wrote more hit songs than Cole Porter, Irving Berlin or George Gershwin, three of which earned him Academy Awards: “Lullaby of Broad- way”, “You’ll Never Know” and “Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe”.
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California’s “Valentino Restaurant”, was opened at 3115 Pico Blvd, in Santa Monica, by Piero Selvaggio, in 1972. Now it has one of the greatest assem- blages of Italian and California wines in the World, according to “Wine Spectator” which handed Piero Selvaggio its inaugural Grand Award back in 1981.
I started wine tasting when I was six, by dipping a piece of bread into my mamma’s wine glass, but I am not an oenologist, however, I was amazed to learn that Valentino’s wine list currently has a total of 2,795 selections. Piero Selvaggio compiled a fine selection of California wines in the early 1970’s, by asking for and taking the advice of a friendly Napa Winery owner, but in the late 1970’s, he met Piero Antinori, Antonio Mastroberardino, Angelo Gaja and other modern-day Italian wine pioneers when they toured California as a group. He made friends with them and they later sold him their wines, which in some cases were highly allocated.
In 1994 when the Northridge earthquake destroyed the sec- ond-floor cellar at Valentino, which held the most valuable wines, Italian vintners such as Gaja and Californian Barrett dug into their cellars to replace lost bottles. Now that’s friendship.
There is also a Piero Selvaggio’s “Valentino Rest- aurant” at the Venetian Resort Hotel & Casino at 3355 Las Vegas Blvd.
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Elegant gowns, opera costumes and photographs of early S.F. “Italianità” from the archival collection of Alessandro Baccari were recently on display at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura at 814 Montgomery Street, San Francisco. Mr. Baccari gave a talk on his exhibition of photographs and artifacts from the 19th and 20th centuries and on the Unification of Italy and the impact it has had on the Italians living in California.
Since traditionally, the San Francisco Opera season opens in September. Let me share this bit of early San Francisco history with you:
As San Francisco Opera first nighters, dressed in furs and finery, file into the San Francisco Opera House each September, when the new season begins, few if any attendees realize, it was Sicilian American Opera lovers, mostly crab-fishermen living in early San Francisco, to whom they owe a debt of gratitude, for first financing Grand Opera in San Francisco, as per dreams spun by Gaetano Merola.
Encouraged by A. Farina, then the San Francisco Crab Fishermen Association manager, many fishermen mortgaged their homes (and some lost them) in order to build an Opera Company and Opera House for San Francisco. Official, rewritten San Francisco Grand Opera, “First Season” history, begins on 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.
Louise (Stradi) Dana, was born in Pontasserchio (a little town near Pisa) the first child of Giulio and Marietta Strada. Her father, a musician, aided by his fellow musicians in the local church band, who took up a collection to help him buy a steerage ticket, sailed from Genoa, Italy and arrived in New York in 1907 and by working odd jobs arrived in Northern California many months later.
Unable to speak English, his first job upon arrival, was washing dishes for the lumber camps at Fort Bragg, which supplied wood to rebuild home and business in San Francisco after the Great Earthquake and fire in 1906. In a few years, her father saved enough money, from his $30 a month, dish-washing job, to buy passage for Louise and her mother to America and by late 1910 they joined him in San Francisco, where he found work in the Produce Market.
The produce business, agreed with Giulio Stradi and by 1920 he had become financially suc- cessful. He had an interest in several produce markets, among them the downtown “Spreckles and Halas Markets”. He had many friends, among them Gaetano and Rosa Merola from Napoli, who were frequent guests at the Stradi home. Mr. Merola, often played the piano and after dinner everyone would discuss opera and music and the idea of “bringing Opera to San Francisco”.
Over time, a plan took shape. Mr. Merola would produce the operas and Mr. Stradi and his friends would put up the money. Establishing a new opera company and producing the opera in 1921 was a huge undertaking. Louise, 16 years old graduated from Heald Business College, in San Francisco that year and at Merola’s request, she became his secretary, and as the only employee of the San Francisco Opera Company, her duties were many and her salary was often unpaid or delayed.
The local Italian newspaper “L’Italia”, donated a small space on Columbus avenue, which served as the San Francisco Opera office. Louise made the bank deposit, kept the books, answered the phones, and even arranged for the Southern Pacific Railroad to bring San Francisco patrons to the performances.
The first performance “I Pagliacci”, “Carmen” and “Faust” were performed in the Summer of 1922. Louise and her father Giulio Stradi attended all three performances.
The first San Francisco Opera Company performances in 1922 were an artistic success, but a financial disaster. Mr. Merola had to ask Mr. Stradi and his friends for additional money to cover the losses. By 1923, thanks to the artistic success showcased at the Stanford Stadium, in 1922, Gaetano Merola, met the Bay Area’s monied folks, from the Alexanders to the Zellerbacks, with the Fleishhakers and Goldsteins in between.
In fact, with the exception of A. P. Giannini, there was not one Italian surname listed among the 45 sponsors of the San Francisco Grand Opera “First Season” at the San Francisco Exposition Auditorium, September 26, 1923 program. After the “First Season” opened with Puccini’s La boheme, Gaetano Merola never looked back and the sacrifices of “pescatori” working stiffs and produce people were forgotten until 1932.
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On the afternoon of October 14, 1932, the day prior to the official opening of the Opera House, there was a special reception for the unveiling of a commemorative plaque to honor those Italians who aided Merola in starting the San Francisco Opera Company. Mayor Angelo Rossi arranged the event. It was Ettore Patrizi, editor of “L’Italia”, who insisted that all the “forgotten” original supporters of Mr. Merola be invited to the opening night.
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The commemorative plaque, with the names of the original founders, became a part of the historic display on the Opera House mezzanine in 1932. In January 1996, the plaque was removed during the start of renovation of the Opera House. When the Opera House reopened on September 5, 1997 for a gala concert, it was missing and for five years all inquiries as to the plaque whereabouts were met with the “run-around” by Opera House officials.
“Finalmente” due to the persistence of Joe Brucia, son and nephew of two of the original San Francisco Opera Company founders and Alessandro Baccari, historian working on a documentary which deals with the contributions of Italian Americans in bringing Opera to San Francisco, the truth now reigns.
Joe Brucia had a large, heavy bronze plaque, designed, so it would not get “lost” by those who want to rewrite history and affixed (in 2003) in a place of honor, on the walls of the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House at 610 Van Ness Avenue.
