During the vaudeville era, the Opera House punched well above its weight. In 1884, John L. Sullivan -- the last bare-knuckle heavyweight champion of the world -- fought an exhibition match on its stage, in a specially constructed ring on the main floor. In 1896, John Philip Sousa brought his brass band to the valley, filling the auditorium with marches that were, at the time, the closest thing America had to a national soundtrack. The theater's flat auditorium floor, an unusual design choice, allowed it to double as a dance hall and pageant venue, making it the center of Napa's social life. In 1905, the Italian soprano Luisa Tetrazzini performed at the Opera House shortly after her San Francisco debut, and Jack London read from his works on the same stage. An advertising curtain promoted local businesses between acts -- a reminder that even in its grandest moments, the Opera House was inseparable from the town that sustained it.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake damaged the building, and the decline of vaudeville and the rise of motion pictures finished what the tremor started. The Opera House closed in 1914 and entered a long purgatory. For seventy years, the Italianate facade sheltered a succession of forgettable commercial tenants -- storage, retail, the kinds of businesses that fill beautiful buildings when no one can afford to use them for their intended purpose. The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, a designation that acknowledged its significance without doing much to reverse its decay. Not until 1985 did a nonprofit form to attempt a restoration. The project stalled for another decade before Robert Mondavi and his wife Margrit issued a challenge grant of $2.2 million in 1997, catalyzing a fundraising campaign that would eventually reach $13.7 million.

The restored Opera House reopened in stages. In June 2002, the ground floor debuted as the intimate 200-seat Cafe Theatre, with jazz singer Dianne Reeves performing on opening night. The larger upstairs venue followed on July 31, 2003, with Rita Moreno taking the stage -- and then, in a deliberate echo of history, a production of HMS Pinafore, the same opera that had inaugurated the building 123 years earlier. The upstairs theater now seats 500, with modern lighting, acoustics, and an orchestra pit that accommodates 40 musicians. The bookending of Pinafore was more than sentiment. It was a statement that the building had not merely survived but had returned to its original purpose, closing a gap of nearly nine decades.

The restored Opera House struggled financially even as it thrived artistically. By 2011, the facility still carried $3.4 million in debt, prompting the City of Napa to approve a $1.5 million forgivable loan funded through redevelopment money. A $2.5 million renovation in 2014 brought City Winery into the building, but that venture lasted barely a year. From 2016 through 2025, the space housed Blue Note Napa, a 150-seat jazz club on the ground floor, and the JaM Cellars Ballroom upstairs, a 650-seat space hosting rock, pop, country, and world music, together presenting over 300 shows annually. In January 2026, the building reinvented itself once more: new owner John Anthony Truchard relaunched it as Napa Music Hall, with The Club downstairs and The Ballroom above, planning approximately 200 shows per year. The Opera House has been, by turns, a vaudeville palace, a boxing ring, a warehouse, a winery, a jazz club, and now a music hall. Each reinvention has tested whether the building's bones can hold another version of itself. So far, they have.