Carole Schaffer as Helen Bailey, Andriana Chuchman as Mary Hatch, William Burden as George Bailey, Keith Jameson as Uncle Billy Bailey and Catherine Cook as Mother Bailey Photo

From: Photo Flash: First Look at San Francisco Opera's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

San Francisco Opera presents the West Coast premiere of It's a Wonderful Life by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer in nine holiday-season performances from November 17 through December 9. The two-act work, a co-commission and co-production between San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, is based in part on Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life and The Greatest Gift, a story by Philip Van Doren Stern.