89th Verona Arena Opera Festival

From 17 June 2011 to 03 September 2011

Great triumph for Aida in the roman amphitheatre of Verona, as evidenced by the delirious cheering of the cosmopolitan crowd. This was the opening title on 12 August 1913 on the local paper lArena, when describing the jubilation caused by the first showing of the Arena Opera Festival. The event was right from the onset a huge success. On the opening show the Arena was swarming with spectators, similarly to what used to happen during the ancient times of Rome, with an audience that had arrived from all over the world and included star names such as Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni and the still little known Franz Kafka.

The opening was held to celebrate 100 hundred years since the birth of the composer Giuseppe Verdi and signified the birth of a new scenographic style, with the abandonment of the colourful backdrops used in old-style theatres and the use instead of new and elaborate three-dimensional elements, such as marble pillars and statues, in perfect tuning with the monumental scene of the Arena and setting this way a peculiar scenic style replicated in all the following 88 editions.

On 17 June the curtains of the magic list of sensational events of the Arena Opera Festival will be raised. There will be six operas, until the 3rd of September with a succession of 49 sensational evening shows, all characterized by the unique aura of the stage of the Verona Arena, where the opera star performer Maria Callas became came into being, after her first appearance on this historic stage in Achille Ponchiellis La Gioconda.

The list of opera to be performed over the summer will not fail to include, as in all previous years, the renowned Verdis operas Aida and Nabucco (this year to be presented with a historic rearrangement in concomitance with the 150th anniversary of Italys unification as well as Gioacchino Rossinis The Barber of Seville and Puccinis Bohme.

The 89th Verona Arena Opera Festival will include two new operas to be staged as the opening and closing events. The former will be Verdis Traviata and the latter Charles Gounods Romeo and Juliet, set to celebrate two of the best known symbols of this town - the Arena and the famous Shakespeare lovebirds, unified underneath the starred skies of the exciting evenings of the Verona opera.