In Memoriam

Sally Amato

9/27/1917 - 8/16/2000

Sally Amato, also known as Serafina Bellantone, died Wednesday evening at her home on City Island following a long illness. The wife of Maestro Anthony Amato, she was co-founder, with her husband, and producing director of the Amato Opera Theatre. She was 82 years old.

Born in New York's Little Italy in 1917, Sally Amato started her long theatrical career performing vaudeville skits as a child in local movie theatres. She met her husband while they were both appearing in an operetta at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse, and later assisted him with his workshops at the American Theatre Wing. In 1948, they launched The Amato Opera Theater as a venue to provide performance opportunities for the flood of young talent pursuing operatic careers in post-WWII New York.

The first performances of the Amato Opera were held in the basement of Our Lady of Pompeii Church in Greenwich Village, they soon found a more permanent home for the company at 159 Bleecker Street, where the Amato's established one of the first "off-Broadway" theatre companies. The opera theater's location later became Circle-In-The-Square Downtown, which is now the home of the Actor's Studio. In 1963 the company moved to its current home at 319 Bowery, on the corner of 2nd Street.

Like the company she helped create and maintain for so long, the petite Sally Amato proved herself a diminutive powerhouse. Using her maiden name, Serafina Bellantone, she performed as leading lady with the company in many roles, garnering critical and popular acclaim as a remarkable singing actress, often compared to divas like Maria Callas and Theresa Stratas. But, in many ways, her activities outside the limelight were the most important contribution she made to the arts. She functioned as seamstress, box office manager, light board operator, short-order cook and general factotum for the company for all of the Amato Opera's 52 consecutive seasons, nurturing countless emerging artists in the process.

In recent years the company has become a city landmark with an international following. Recipients of commendations and awards from Mayors Abe Beam, Ed Koch and Rudolph Giuliani, Mr. and Mrs. Amato have also been inducted into City Lore's Peoples' Hall of Fame, and honored by the American Cultural Roundtable and the Italian Heritage and Cultural Committee in recognition for their contribution to the artistic quality of life in New York City. Their work has been the subject of several television features both in the US and abroad, and is the suhject of an upcoming feature-length documentary for PBS.

Sally is survived by her husband, sister Ann Frydel, niece Irene Frydel Kim and nephew Richard Leighton. Visiting will be at Perazzo's Funeral Home at 199 Bleecker Street, Friday, August 18th from 2:00-5:00 p.m and from 7:00-9:30 p.m. Services will be held Saturday morning at Our Lady of Pompeii Church on Bleecker and Carmine Streets at 10:15 a.m. A condolence book has been set up at the company's Web site at: http://www.amato.org.