Shakespeare made it famous, but this Italian city has its own stage star

Among the marble lanes of Verona’s old town, crowds pack a courtyard. Purported to hold the balcony on which Juliet bemoaned the fact that the eavesdropping Romeo was a Montague, it’s an eternally congested site and a show unto itself. But this fictitious Shakespearean scene is not even the northern Italian city’s greatest theatrical moment.

It’s in the city’s Roman arena, a gladiatorial stage older than the Colosseum, that Verona’s annual Arena Opera Festival has been held since 1913. Staged across almost the entire summer, the festival is billed as “the most Italian place on Earth”, though what’s playing out before me, in the late light of dusk, is a tale from ancient Egypt.

Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, composed for the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, has a special place at the Arena Opera Festival, having been the first opera staged at the festival 112 years ago. It’s now been sung in the arena more than 700 times.

When I first attended the festival in 2019, it was to see Aida. When I returned this year, my visit coincided with another performance of the Egyptian tale of love, slavery and war. I didn’t hesitate to attend again, even if only for another evening encounter with the arena.

This year, five operas and almost 50 performances filled Verona’s summer nights. Shows start on dusk – about 9.30pm in midsummer – and the mass of people in Piazza Bra, outside the arena, is like a September crowd at the MCG, only better dressed.

Sets from other operas are piled against the arena’s red stone walls, ready for quick changeovers – on some weekends, there are three different operas performed on three consecutive nights.

What I learned the literal hard way in 2019 was the value of a cushion for the three-plus hours sat on stone steps, so this time I’m drawn to the piazza vendors hawking relief from a numb bum. Cushion under my arm, I’m ready for my night at the opera.

In the stalls, the evening is like a red-carpet event of suits and ball gowns, but on the steps, things are more utilitarian, with shorts replacing suits, and skirts in place of gowns. I’m sitting 10 rows from the top of the arena, high above the stage, with the arena’s four surviving arches just above me.

As dusk settles and a cool wind begins to relieve the 35-degree day, actors begin to emerge onto the glass stage that covers almost half the arena floor.

Six years ago, the Aida stage set was a classical re-creation of an Egyptian scene, abundant in obelisks and sphinxes, but before me now is a scene more modern than traditional (a choice loved and loathed in seemingly equal measure by those around me) flaring with laser lights and with a moving mechanical hand poised over the stage.

The first actors step out onto the stage in black suits, looking more Matrix than Aida, and what unfolds is a high-tech production of light, colour and choreography as beautiful and precise as a Tom Ford film.

For all that, the star of the show is undoubtedly the arena. Built half a century before the Colosseum, it’s Europe’s third-largest amphitheatre, built with seating for 30,000 people. It was gladiators who first strutted its floor, then later jousters, bullfighters and now opera singers.

On opera nights, there’s a single intermission – a chance to wriggle out the numb spots – before a voice implores, “Hurry, the magic of the arena is about to continue.”

We sit again and lightning flashes across the distant sky as Aida and Radames prepare to die for their love before us. It’s a suitably dramatic conclusion, both on stage and off, and as I watch it unfold from on high, I’m more certain than ever that these 2000-year-old Roman steps are Verona’s finest balcony.

THE DETAILS

OPERA
The 2026 Arena Opera Festival will run from June 12 to September 12, with performances of Aida, La Traviata, La Bohème, Nabucco and Turandot. Tickets from €35 ($62). See arena.it/en/arena-verona-opera-festival

FLY
Emirates flies daily to Rome, transiting through Dubai, from Sydney and Melbourne. From Rome, the best way to Verona is the high-speed Frecciarossa rail service (four hours), departing from Rome Termini. See emirates.com, trenitalia.com

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visitverona.it

The writer travelled at his own expense.

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