Amato Opera director, choosing the repertoire, rehearsing and conducting the operas. In the early productions, he often cast students from his opera classes at The America Theatre Wing, where he was the Director of the Opera Workshop. There was no admission charge for the company's early performances, because union rules prohibited it. Instead, during the intermission the Amatos would "pass the hat around" for contributions. Sally acted as costumier, ran lights and box office and managed publicity and business matters. Under the alias Serafina Bellantoni, she sang in productions for over fifty years. Their first production, Rossini's "The Barber of Seville", was
The Barber of Seville (Paisiello) Paisiello, but Paisiello's comic opera was the first to achieve widespread success. It was subsequently staged in several cities in the years immediately following its premiere, including Vienna, where "Il barbiere" played at five venues from 1783 until 1804, both in Italian and German, and received nearly 100 performances, and Naples (1783); Warsaw, Prague, Versailles (1784); Cassel, Bratislava, Mannheim (1785); Liège, Cologne (1786); Madrid and Barcelona (1787); for the 1787 production in Naples at the Teatro dei Fiorentini, the opera was reduced to three acts and Pasiello wrote three new numbers: "La carta che bramate" for Rosina, "Serena il bel