Gala days of Piper's Opera House and the California Theater

Impresario David Belasco (1859-1931) was one of the great showmen of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and was known for creating his own persona and his own legend. The famous Belasco "touch" brought audiences to theaters wherever he worked and so it was with his brief tenure at Piper's Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada, between October 1873 and March 1874. Belasco filled several engagements on the Comstock before the 1875 fire destroyed the original Piper's Opera house on D Street, and in reminiscences published in 1914, he related his experiences and impressions of life on the Comstock during its tumultuous boom days. Those reminiscences were re-issued in this limited edition book in 1991 by Clarence D. Basso at Falcon Hill Press, Sparks, Nevada.