Lobero Theatre, founded in 1873 by José Lobero, faces you. Founded in 1873 by José Lobero, this is California’s oldest continuously operating theater, a place that has hosted theater, music, film, and civic events for generations. The original opera house gave way in 1924 to the present theater, designed here by George Washington Smith and Lutah Maria Riggs in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, and that design still shapes the theatre you see now.
Think of Giuseppe Lobero’s journey from Genoa to California — he arrived during the Gold Rush and became known here as José — and imagine the early curiosity that launched a local institution. Over the years performers such as Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, Dave Brubeck, and Bing Crosby have appeared on this stage. In 2023 Architectural Digest named the Lobero one of the world’s eleven most beautiful theaters.
This single street corner carries a sweep of cultural life, from the 1873 founding to the 1924 redesign, in the Spanish Colonial Revival facade you now face.