Elisabetta Zizzo

It's an event that draws many thousands of music lovers to one of the most beautiful cities in the world every summer: the opera season at the ancient Arena di Verona. The 2,000-year-old roman amphiteatre with its gigantic stage dimensions is one of the largest and best preserved Roman construction of its kind, and with over 22,000 seats it is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular open-air venues of the world! The revered master of opera Franco Zeffirelli, who died shortly before the premiere of Il Trovatore, created a legendary scenery with groups of giant sized armoured knights, a fortress turning into a luminous cathedral, an enormous choir, horses, breathtaking fights: “his perhaps best arena production” (Opernglas). It brings Anna Netrebko to the Arena of Verona where she is giving her much-anticipated debut in one of Giuseppe Verdi’s most popular operas.

The opera that established Verdi’s greatness as a composer, Nabucco follows the plight of the Jews as they are exiled from their homeland by the eponymous Babylonian King. This 2019 production from Verdi Festival Parma won critical acclaim for its directors, Stefano Ricci and Gianni Forte for whom opera is a means to question the world of today. The curtain rises in the bowels of a modern warship...