La Traviata at the Arena di Verona

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We arrived in Verona early in the afternoon, after a short train trip from Venice. Verona is so different from Venice: cleaner, less crowded, with more open spaces and amazing Roman theater. We all fell in love with the beauty of Verona and it’s gorgeous Roman walls and 13th century buildings and piazzas.

Liliana’s father and grandmother had arrived in Verona on the night before, so we met them at the hotel Accademia, which is right in the center of the old town. We walked to a cafe for lunch and then came back to the rooms to rest before going out to La Traviata later in the evening. The girls “napped” for about 3 and a half hours. We woke them up for a relatively early dinner (7:30 pm is early for dinner in Italy) and then walked to the Arena.

The Arena theater is just about 100 meters from the town center and our hotel. It’s an old Roman ampitheater that is still used for events. Every summer, they have a series of outdoor operas, and part of the reason we came to Verona was to see the operas and celebrate Italietta’s eightieth birthday together.

La Traviata was beautiful. I didn’t realize that they did not use any sound system, so all of the volume comes from the singers themselves. The soprano playing Violetta had a beautiful, strong voice, and the tenor playing Alfredo was also very good. It was beautifully staged, and as the evening progressed, the almost-full moon rose high in the sky above the stage. It was fantastic -- event the girls seemed to enjoy the entire evening (although they thought it took a long time for poor Violetta to die!)

The opera ended at 12:30 am and we were back home in bed by around 1 am.

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