Bernadette Peters took the stage to a standing ovation at the Lexington Opera House on Sunday night, a celebratory turn for a downtown landmark marking its 140th anniversary. The performance was part of a milestone tribute to a theater that first opened in 1887 and survived a near-death stretch that once left it facing demolition.

By the 1970s, the Lexington Opera House had fallen into disrepair and was threatened with being torn down. A group of Lexington residents refused to let that happen. Linda Carey led the push to save the building and helped raise money for its restoration, while Sonia Ross spent two years volunteering on plaster work without pay. Ross once joked that even her garbage man knew how much effort she was putting in: “My garbage man hated me because my garbage can weigh about 250 pounds,” she said.

The opera house is now one of downtown Lexington’s most recognizable landmarks, restored after its condition deteriorated and preserved in a form its backers believed could still draw major performers. Jim Host said the venue remains “the most acoustical perfect theater in the country besides the Ford Theater,” and added that it “is restored in the original format that caused great Broadway people to come here and use.” That reputation was on display Sunday night as Peters received the kind of welcome usually reserved for a homecoming.

The anniversary concert did more than salute a famous performer. It underscored how close Lexington came to losing a building that still defines the city’s cultural center, and how much work it took to bring it back. Peters’ appearance gave the celebration a marquee name, but the deeper story was the one behind the curtain: a theater saved by local resolve, restored by volunteers and supporters, and still strong enough to fill on a Sunday night.