But it soon becomes clear that they have a darker mission: to wreak vengeance on two sinful cities, unnamed in the opera but SodomandGomorrah in the Bible.
Despite its reputation as the global capital of Mammon, and despite its image in much of America as a modern SodomandGomorrah, New York remains a remarkably religious city.
One could easily imagine the more devout television evangelists rushing to the airwaves with apocalyptic warnings that the District of Columbia had become a modern-day SodomandGomorrah, and that the president's moral lapses would cause the mighty American eagle to shed all its feathers.
The origin of the road's regal name is said to stem back to a league of kings who advanced this way to wage war with the wicked Cities of the Plains -- the Old Testament cities of SodomandGomorrah -- which are thought to have lain along the Dead Sea.