When little Martin Scorsese sang in the choir of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in Little Italy, he didn’t know that in 1826, the beautiful basilica had hosted an Italian opera company in an event that had forever changed America’s cultural landscape. Lost to history until recently, The Oratorio includes stories of the original performance that was New York’s first Italian opera night. This watershed event stirred a wave of excitement and was followed by many more musical performances. Now, as musicians from both sides of the Atlantic are getting ready to restage the Oratorio, Scorsese tells the forgotten stories behind the cathedral and the music. The tales of colorful characters like Lorenzo Da Ponte who wrote the libretti for Mozart’s operas, and Maria Malibran, a young singer considered opera’s first diva, are mixed with stories of immigrants and refugees. In all these stories, music acts as a bridge, or, in Scorsese’s words, “music is the soul of the world.”