Opera is a fragile, complex art, but it flourished extravagantly in San Francisco during the Gold Rush years, a time when daily life in the city was filled with gambling, duels, murder, and suicide. In the history of the United States there has never been a rougher town than Gold Rush San Francisco, yet there has never been a greater frenzy for opera than developed there in these exciting years.

How did this madness for opera take root and grow? Why did the audience's generally drunken, brawling behavior gradually improve? How and why did Verdi emerge as the city's favorite composer? These are the intriguing themes of George Martin's enlightening and wonderfully entertaining story. Among the incidents recounted are the fist fight that stopped an opera performance and ended in a fatal duel; and the brothel madam who, by sitting in the wrong row of a theater, caused a fracas that resulted in the formation of the Vigilantes of 1856.

Martin weaves together meticulously gathered social, political, and musical facts to create this lively cultural history. His study contributes to a new understanding of urban culture in the Jacksonian–Manifest Destiny eras, and of the role of opera in cities during this time, especially in the American West. Over it all soars Verdi's somber, romantic music, capturing the melancholy, the feverish joy, and the idealism of his listeners.

George Martin is the author of many books about Verdi and opera generally, among them The Opera Companion (fourth edition, 1991) and Verdi, His Music, Life and Times (fourth edition, 1992). He lives and writes in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

"A meticuloulsy researched history. . . . Martin sees the Bay City's growing acclaim for Verdi's music as a paradigm for the development of musical taste in a town that grew from frontier outpost to cosmopolitan bastion in little more than a decade. . . . A potent look at American cultural history. . . . A genuine contribution to the history of art and society during the tumultuous years of this country's adolescence."—Kirkus Reviews

"The book gripped me from the start, and held me: an exploration into eventful decades of American musical history that had been for too long uncharted."—Andrew Porter, music critic, The Observer

"Martin has generously spiced his serious study with the riot and rivaldry of the frontier—the sort of material that amuses and instructs cultural historians (and general readers).—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Authoritative, fluent, and based upon vast knowledge."— Opera Quarterly

"We must be grateful to George Martin for having given us not only a riproaring good tale of the trials and tribulations and triumphs of opera in San Francisco but also a great deal to ponder in considering the status of opera today."—The Opera Journal

"A study of the conditions of performance, the age, gender and social class of audiences, the atmosphere peculiar to a particular place, and how these things shaped the reception of that musical performance and that music. . . . The story that Martin has to tell is rich in colourful events and characters, and he makes the most of his material, tracing the evolution of opera in San Francisco through stages typical of opera's introduction into other frontier communities. These stages are carefully and lucidly drawn against a social background of memorable extravagance, brawling and violence, fires, vigilante episodes and duels, and the pervasive bonanza mentality, spectacular gold strikes and equally spectacular failures.”—Times Literary Supplement

"Martin's history, using opera and Verdi as signposts, actually explores a whole cultural ambiance: from him the reader learns a good deal not only about San Francisco's theatres and singers, but also about California politics and about the growth of the state, its shifting position within the country as a whole, and its gradual acquisition of intellectual respectability. . . . Martin in a genuine scholar. . . . The presentation of the book is as exemplary as its contents.”—Opera

"A superbly documented and often thrilling account of an overlooked aspect of Northern California.”—San Francisco Focus

"Martin has generously spiced his serious study with the riot and ribaldry of the frontier.

An intriguing story, and Martin tells it skillfully, mixing descriptions of music and performers with enough background information to make the cultural milieu of Gold Rush San Francisco come alive.”—San Francisco Chronicle

"This is a narrative unlike any other, combining the most colorful, passionate, and theatrical of all art forms with the history of the most colorful, passionate, and theatrical of all American cities."—from the foreword by Lotfi Mansouri, General Director, San Francisco Opera

"An important contribution to the cultural history of California and of San Francisco, unusual because of the author's rich understanding of Verdi's place in Western culture. Music and cultural historians will find this an exciting book in the field of opera and society."—Burton W. Peretti, author of The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race, and Culture in Urban America