[2] It was designed after the Salle Barthélemy;[3] a theatre located on the Rue Neuve-Saint-Nicolas in Paris, France that had opened previously in June 1851.
[4] The inaugural performance at the Varieties Theatre occurred on May 10, 1852, with a double bill of Edward W. Shands' You Can't Open and the comedy Where There's a Will; the latter starring Field and his wife, the actress Eliza Riddle Field.
[2] It operated as the Grand Opera House for the next seven years under the management of John W. Norton.
[8] The second Grand Opera House was built over a ten-month period on the same property as the first theatre.
It operated under that name into the early 1960s, and was demolished in 1963 to make room for Busch Memorial Stadium.