Amato: A Love Affair With Opera on AllMovie

Tony and Sally Amato were a pair of New York opera enthusiasts who in 1947 (not long after they married) founded the Amato Opera Company, an independent opera company who never let their ambitions be limited by their sometimes limited resources. While the Amato Opera Company eventually grew big enough to take over a venue in New York's theater district, at one point they lost their lease and were unable to find a new theater for their productions. Undaunted, the Amatos converted the company's storage space on the Bowery into a small theater (it sat 107 people), and in 1997 they celebrated their 50th year of staging professional opera, offering budding talent a place to mature and presenting high-quality performances in an intimate setting (the Amato Opera Company theater is flanked on one side by a gas station, and on the other by the famous punk rock venue CBGB!). Amato: A Love Affair With Opera is a documentary that celebrates Tony and Sally's marriage as well as their unique careers in music; sadly, Sally Amato died shortly before the film was completed.