The charge of the “Hamilton” brigade finally reached San Francisco Thursday night, officially opening after two weeks of previews.

And after what seems like an eternity of anticipation and hype here’s the good news: the Broadway blockbuster manages to not only live up to but, amazingly, exceed our stratospherically high expectations.

Being in the room where it happens turns out to be as mind-blowing and emotionally shattering as you’d expect. If you don’t have a ticket, it’s more than worth playing the daily lottery for a shot to experience Lin-Manuel Miranda’s magnificent hip-hop history play, which runs through Aug. 5 at San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre in its national tour launch. This is the kind of artistically electrifying and socially charged musical that will live in your mind and your ears long after the curtain falls.

Not having seen the uber hit on Broadway, where it originated in January 2015, it’s hard to compare. Yet it’s equally difficult to imagine a cast that’s gutsier than this one. Director Thomas Kail has astutely harnessed the gifts of the new ensemble and Andy Blankenbuehler’s pithy choreography to its full potential. Driven by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s relentlessly propulsive score, these actors feel raw and real — they are indeed “young, scrappy and hungry.”

This much is certain: the multiculturalism of the musical is anything but a gimmick. Instead it’s the beating heart of a show that argues that immigration is now and has always been a pillar of our democracy. In light of our current politics, that’s a radical concept, and one that gives “Hamilton” its explosive edge.

Even more revelatory, just minutes into the opening number, the actors have burrowed so deeply into their characters that you stop noticing things like race and gender. Each actor suddenly seems born to play the founding fathers, white wigs be damned. Some of that alchemy lies in the genius of the score, with its shout-outs to everything from “Les Miz” and Gilbert and Sullivan to Grandmaster Flash. Some of it lies in achingly touching performances and Kail’s intuitive direction.

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From the opening tableau, Miranda’s cheeky rhymes dazzle the ear while David Korin’s massive set design, a town square of bricks and rope that seems perpetually under construction wows the eye. Blankenbuehler’s galvanizing choreography pops while somehow never calling attention to itself, with the movement informing the characters and story line with subtlety and precision. Paul Tazewell’s colonial-chic costumes seduce the viewer in the same way.

As Alexander Hamilton, Michael Luwoye burns with gravitas and ambition as the penniless and illegitimate orphan who rises to the heights of power. The formidable actor gives him a pugnacious spirit that sets fire to every scene he’s in. It’s a devastatingly visceral performance matched in intensity by Joshua Henry’s Burr. Henry glows with bitterness and ambition as Aaron Burr, the man destined to play the villain in his fatal duel with Hamilton. In many ways, it is just as much Burr’s musical because he is Hamilton’s alter-ego as well as his nemesis.

As the two main Schuyler sisters, the punk-haired Emmy Raver-Lampman rivets as the fierce and witty Angelica, and Solea Pfeiffer radiates gentleness as Eliza. Pfeiffer sings like an angel and Raver-Lampman is so captivating one hopes that Angelica gets the sequel she demands.

Rory O’Malley is a hoot and a half as the megalomaniacal monarch of the piece, delivering a tour-de-fop as King George. Entitled from birth, coddled by all, this preening King George would surely have blathered on Twitter at 3 a.m. if he could.

Joan Marcus

To be sure, the productions has its imperfections. Jordan Donica barely registers as the swaggering Lafayette and is merely serviceable as the scheming Jefferson (like many in the cast, he plays more than one part). Some of the singers lack the panache to convey the beauty and the meaning behind Miranda’s densely-plotted couplets.

Still a misstep here and there doesn’t diminish the greatness of this epic musical, which earns an almost three-hour running time that’s radical in this age of short attention spans. The key is engagement, of course. “Hamilton” grabs you by the head and the heart in the first song, the title number, and never lets you go. Many leave the theater only go home and blast the soundtrack.

Even though you know how it’s going to end, it’s hard to avoid tears. Historians may quibble over details in the play, which was inspired by Ron Chernow’s biography, but the emotional truth of the musical, its heartfelt tribute to the birth of a nation, is undeniable.

This is history as a hero’s journey that’s always unfolding, always daring us to play our parts in the ongoing drama that is the American experiment. The only question is whether we will follow in the footsteps of the founding fathers (and mothers) and rise up.

‘HAMILTON: AN AMERICAN MUSICAL’

Through: Aug.5

Where: Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St., San Francisco

Running time: almost three hours, one intermission

Tickets: Very few tickets available ($100-$868); check www.hamilton.shnsf.com for information on daily release of $10 lottery tickets