History of Santa Barbara's Lobero Theater

The Loberos story began in the 1840s, when a young Italian trombone player named Giuseppe Lobero arrived in San Francisco to take part in the Gold Rush. “Things must not have worked out exactly as he’d hoped, because by the 1850s, Lobero had moved down to Santa Barbara, where he opened a saloon and changed his first name to José. Lobero’s true love was Italian opera, and with the financial help of Colonel William Hollister, Lobero converted an old adobe schoolhouse on the corner of Canon Perdido and Anacapa streets into California’s only opera house south of San Francisco.

“In the years after the end of the Civil War, every town in America — small, medium, and large — felt it needed to have an opera house in order to be seen as legitimate and to be on the map. The fact that Santa Barbara had an opera house before Los Angeles was something that greatly irritated Los Angeles residents. One editorial in the Los Angeles Evening Express stated, ‘Santa Barbara has the building without the people, while we have the people without the building.’ Los Angeles wouldn’t get a comparable performing arts venue until 1884.

The Lobero Opera House days (1873-1923) certainly can be seen as Santa Barbara’s coming-of-age. A sleepy, physically isolated town gets California’s second opera house, which immediately becomes the center of most civic and cultural life.” The opera house hosted graduations, fundraisers, exhibitions, and political rallies, as well as touring vaudeville, drama, and light opera companies, acrobatic shows, séances, and magic performances.

“The caliber of entertainment improved when the railroad arrived in town in 1887. World-famous celebrities come to Santa Barbara to perform at the Lobero: actors Lionel Barrymore and Lillie Langtry, comedian W. C. Fields, world champion boxer John L. Sullivan, John Philip Sousa and his band, and women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony.

“When the new Lobero Theatre opened in 1924, Santa Barbara finally had a first-class community theater that could also accommodate world-class talent. Unlike the vast majority of America’s 19th-century opera houses, which either shut down or changed into movie theaters in the 1920s, the Lobero survived as a performing arts venue.”

Did you know the Lobero Theatre was named one of Architectural Digests’ 11 most beautiful theatres in the world (read full article here)

For more fascinating history on Santa Barbara or if you're looking to buy or sell real estate, feel free to reach out—I’m here to help! (805) 455-9066, Josh@JoshRamirez.com