Bernadette Peters draws anniversary ovation at Lexington Opera House
bernadette peters took the stage to a standing ovation at the Lexington Opera House on Sunday night, giving the venue’s 140th anniversary celebration its clearest headliner. The performance tied a Broadway name to a downtown Lexington landmark that opened in 1887 and survived a period when demolition was on the table.
Lexington Opera House 140th anniversary
The 140th anniversary framed the night as more than a single performance. Peters’ appearance put a national stage presence inside a theater that local people fought to keep open in the 1970s, when the building had fallen into disrepair and faced the threat of being torn down.
Linda Carey was among the people who pushed the restoration effort forward and helped raise funds for the landmark’s repair. Sonia Ross also spent two years working on plaster for the renovation without pay, a level of hands-on labor that reads less like preservation lore than hard physical work.
Sonia Ross and the restoration
“My garbage man hated me because my garbage can weigh about 250 pounds.” Ross said while describing that volunteer work. The line lands because it comes from the kind of unglamorous labor that made the revival possible, long before an anniversary booking could draw applause.
Jim Host, a board member, said, “What’s special about it is the most acoustical perfect theater in the country besides the Ford Theater.” He also said, “It is restored in the original format that caused great Broadway people to come here and use.” Those comments put the venue’s appeal in practical terms: the restoration was not just about saving a building, but about keeping a performance space usable in its original form.
Jim Host on the restored stage
Peters’ Sunday-night appearance showed how that restoration pays off in the present. A theater saved from the wrecking ball in the 1970s is now able to host a Broadway legend for an anniversary celebration, which is the kind of result preservation campaigns are supposed to produce.
For Lexington, the immediate takeaway is straightforward: the opera house is still functioning as a major room for live performance, and its 140th anniversary was marked by an artist with the reach to make the occasion feel earned. The next audience member walking in is not entering a rescued relic so much as a working theater with a 1887 pedigree and a restoration story that still shapes its reputation.
