San Francisco Ballet, the oldest professional ballet company in America, has emerged as a world-class arts organization since it was founded as the San Francisco Opera Ballet in 1933. Initially, its primary purpose was to train dancers to appear in lavish, full-length opera productions.

As America’s first professional ballet company, San Francisco Ballet has enjoyed a long and rich tradition of artistic “firsts” since its founding in 1933, performing the first American productions of Swan Lake and Nutcracker, as well as the first 20th-century American Coppélia. A lively, vital ensemble, San Francisco Ballet is one of the three largest ballet companies in the United States.

In 2006, in a readers’ poll conducted by Dance Europe magazine, San Francisco Ballet was the first non-European company to be voted “Company of the Year” by the publication. In 2008, San Francisco Ballet celebrates its 75th anniversary.