The Little Opera House That Could

If you walk down the Bowery in Manhattan, you may notice a few kitchen-appliance stores, several bars, and a restaurant or two, but there's a good chance that you'll completely pass by the Amato Opera - one of Manhattan's finest destinations for music lovers.

The cast agrees that Tony Amato acts like he's 18.

Founded by husband-and-wife team Tony and Sally Amato, the opera company has been putting on operas for almost six decades. The Amatos first met in the early 1940s when performing together in the chorus of a musical at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse. He was a young opera buff; she was working in a shirt factory in order to pay for singing lessons. In 1948, the couple mounted the first Amato production in the basement of a West Village church. In the earliest days, Sally had a lot of the leading lady parts. "I've sung every role you could think of," Sally told an NPR interviewer a few years before her death in 2000. "After all, if you sleep with the director, you're going to get something out of it." When she wasn't on stage, she was the place's seamstress, lighting technician, makeup consultant, and publicist.

In 1964, the Amato Opera moved it to its current location, converting a restaurant-supply store into a 107-seat theater complete with a balcony, chandeliers, and a five-person orchestra pit that literally had to be dug into the ground. Every square inch is used for maximum benefit. For instance, in Aida there's a scene where, at the Met, they'll bring elephants on the stage. That's not quite possible at the Amato; so instead, elephant tusks are shown coming out of the wings, as if a real one is lurking just off stage.

Meanwhile Tony Amato, diminutive and gray-haired, still selects every opera, auditions singers, runs rehearsals, directs the performances, and usually conducts, too. Did we mention he's close to 90?

"He acts like he's 18," says Nathan Hull, a baritone who's been performing at the Amato for 8 years. "He's one of the most amazing people on the planet. To know him is to be blessed."

Posted on February 06, 2006