Monday, May 2, 2011

Costume drama on the Bowery as the Amato Opera empties out

On Saturday, workers began clearing out what remains inside the now-closed Amato Opera on the Bowery. (Read our post from Saturday here.)

Meanwhile, Michael Maren was on hand to document the stage props that were coming and going...






See more photos on his Tumblr — he even went inside...

Tony and Sally Amato, pictured here, opened the opera house in 1948. The Amato Opera closed in May 2009.

3 comments:

Ken from Ken's Kitchen said...

Sayonara to another piece of our colorful past.

SpragueD said...

So sad. After living here for 25 years, I finally resolved to visit Amato the week they closed. I forgot an early lesson: NY eats its history; never hesitate.

marjorie said...

Ooh, meant to post this a while ago: the Manhattan School of Music (at 120 Claremont Ave near 122nd St) has done a wonderful thing and, with Mr Amato's blessing, kept his adaptations of operas going. Mr Amato is working with the young singers there on Operas-in-Brief, and the school has even fixed up a lot of the old props (some beauties were in action in April, which means the looters didn't get everything)! We saw the one-hour version of The Magic Flute, which was wonderful, and Mr Amato was there -- lots of love for him in the auditorium. There's some info here: http://www.msmnyc.edu/giving/amato/