"Celeste Aida" from Verdi's Aida

I had tickets to see AIDA a few days after 9/11. Not at the Metropolitan Opera, or any of the big companies, but at the Amato Opera, that famous company in the East Village that for decades mounted opera performances in a tiny box of theatre down on Bowery. In the days after 9/11, I, like every New Yorker, was raw, shocked, and walking around in a daze. Going to the theatre seemed so frivolous compared to the gaping wound smoking at the tip of Manhattan. But my wife and I went, a took our seats in the third row of this tiny theatre just a few feet from the stage. And when the tenor singing Radames sang this aria, singing of his love for Aida, his voice filled that space with power and love and artistry that would simply never happen in a larger venue. It was a much-needed reminder that despite the murderous obscenity that had been inflicted on New York, despite the terrifying uncertainty of what the future held, that there was still beauty in the world. And that's the music I would like to hear on 9/11.

Ali T. Kokmen