The Oratorio: A Documentary with Martin Scorsese 

Friday, Nov. 5, at 9 PM

Repeats Saturday, Nov. 6, at 2 AM

Airs on Fusion on Sunday, Nov. 7, at 5 PM and Tuesday, Nov. 9, at 8 PM

Martin Scorsese reveals the fascinating story of a one-night-only performance in 1826 at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral—Scorsese’s home church in Little Italy—that marked the arrival of Italian opera in the New World. This watershed event was lost to history for almost 200 years, but was recently rediscovered and restaged by an Italian opera company at the historic church. 

Exploring the richness of the immigrant experience, the beginning of a cultural awakening in America and the enduring power of art, THE ORATORIO is populated with unforgettable real-life characters, including Lorenzo Da Ponte—Mozart’s librettist—who, after being banished from Vienna, ended up in New York City working as a grocer; Pierre Toussaint, a freed slave who became a successful hairdresser and the primary benefactor for building St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral; and opera’s first diva, Maria Malibran, whose performances in America inspired young women to take up singing lessons.