Verona Arena Opera

The highlight of the night, and a primary purpose for going to Verona was to see the opera Aida by Giuseppe Verdi. As I had mentioned earlier, there are opera performances in Milan. In fact, arguably the greatest opera house in the world, La Scala, is in Milan. However, one amazing feature of Verona is the ancient Roman arena. It has been a tradition for some time that they perform operas in this arena during the summer. Being in an open space like this, certainly it is does not have the best acoustics, but it is able to present a spectacle not possible in other theaters.

One cannot argue with the music of Verdi, being a master of the operatic form, and the performances by the singers and the conductor and orchestra where wonderful and clear, even in the open air space. The choreographer made use of many dancers and the chorus, and extra performers on the stage to create an amazing show for people like us who were sitting so high in the marble seats of the arena. Because I now produce and direct operas (in addition to composing them), I now watch operas with a different eye, and pay attention to many of the finer details.

One small criticism I have is that there were big breaks in the show that were not intermissions. These breaks were to rearrange the stage for scene changes. Because this arena is not a modern theater, they do not have many of the advantages of stage and set that theaters typically have, and so they had to take their time for scene changes. Perhaps another director would have worked within these limitations differently, and the audience would have (I think) understood that the production would have had to work within these limitations, and would have been understanding when the production did not resemble that of a modern opera house. Another curious feature that I was not accustomed to was that there would be a break after each aria for the singers to bow and show appreciation to the audience. Perhaps this is how they do things in Italy, so I cannot criticize this.

All in all, it was a great production that did justice for to the great opera and composer.