By Ernest Kearney

(A) presentation of wonders for the operatic art unshackled from the stifling formality of the opera house and the throngs of old money ticket holders.

In his introduction to the show, Sticco definitely gives the best description of opera I’ve ever heard, calling it a musical art form in which the human voice was treated as another “instrument” in the composition.  And in which replacing the spoken word with an emotional honesty conveyed in song, “made us look beyond the masks.”