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Published: November 27th 2005
Puccini's Turandot
The Turandot Opera: my first real Italian opera.It was quite a change from Tuscany to Veneto region, even though still within a same country. Veneto region is located in the northeast of Italy, and the most prominent city in the region is Venice. There must be something with this region, as many of the places name started with V: Veneto, Venezia, Vicenza, and Verona.
The eternal love Verona is a cool city. I cannot describe what exactly the architectural style of the city, but it feels like Gothic and fortification from the outside. A brick bridge with spike ornamentations spans across a wild, strong current river, and it frames views of Verona. Streets are lined up with covered loggia, and in the middle of the city was the only ancient Roman intact amphitheater, still being used for many performances and attractions. In fact, we are going to see the open air Italian opera Turandot on our second day in Verona.
After having a lunch at a local Chinese restaurant with Macy, we went back to the gathering place inside a fort in the town center. Macy insisted to see the
Piazza dei Signori, where a statue of Dante stands. I am not a big
Inside the Arena di Verona
Before the production of Puccini's Turandot. philosopher reader, but I got the impression that he was so depressed during his life, judging by his hoody figure and mysteriousness.
Verona is also famous for the love scene Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, and they even have the Juliet’s house built in town.
Casa di Giuletta was tackier than I had thought. While all of the girls in our group were oo-ing and ahh-ing the place and how romantic the Romeo and Juliet story was, we acted like boys, just watching the girls. The balcony said to be Juliet’s bedroom where Romeo was hitting on her, was even up there above the bronze statue of Juliet. Her right breast was shiny, worn off by the visitors’ rubbing for good luck. The wall of the courtyard was dirty black, filled in with names of thousands of couples for their eternal loves. Many of them were written down on top of chewed gum attached to the wall. Jason put down his name and Correen for their future life together; (this is when the people would say, “Oooowww ..”).
I thought that this was our sightseeing day for Verona, but my professor Mira thought otherwise. We went to a
Before the opera
People are waiting for hours to enter the arena. Sort of like gladiator show, only with fat lady singing instead. Villa ground right after, and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the big garden. Most of us tried to entertain ourselves with some stupid activities, such as racing to get through a maze and climbing up to the grotto way up the hill, but some were sitting down and sketching the scenery all around the villa. Not a surprise to see many lemon trees in pots were all around the garden, along with rustic fountains and structures. By this point, I believe I’ve seen enough Italian villas, and ready to move on.
Fiesta in the Agroturismo There are many vineyards and farms that offer their place to experience the Veneto culture first hand, and I was glad to spend two nights at one of the Agriturismos. Nothing is better than spending the whole day around the romantic Verona, coming back to the remote Agriturismo and having the biggest fiesta with your close friends. Consider that we stayed over a farm with sustainable living system, the food and wine taste differently for the better. There were plenty of wine of different kinds, and for very cheap price, we kept refilling our glass with vino bianco. My
A Verona bridge
The ornamental bridge of Verona. professor Mira tried to go over the Opera Turandot we would see the next day at the Verona Amphitheater with us, but she had troubles herself to keep it serious. At the end of the fiesta, everybody was feeling good and enjoying ourselves.
Open air Italian Opera in the Verona amphitheater Our whole class decided to take it easy on the second day in Verona, as all of us had a somewhat rough night after chugging our wine like crazy. Our two villa visits were cancelled (Yay!), and we went to check out the city of Vicenza.
But of course the highlight of the day was the
Turandot opera at the Verona amphitheater. As to many of us, this was my first authentic Italian opera ever, and regardless what my professor Mira said about several precaution on opera etiquette, we still didn’t dress up to the first class tux as suggested, whereas she dressed up nicely. Fortunately after arriving there at the site, we noticed that none of the people here dressed up for the open air opera. There were no seating arrangement on the amphitheater, so as soon as the gates were opened around 4.30;
Casa di Giuletta, Verona
The famous Juliet's balcony. we were like beasts storming in, trying to hog an area for the whole group to sit right adjacent to the stage in the middle. I felt like ugly Americans, as locals just gave us dirty look. We secured a strategic place for the group, as I looked around; the whole arena was filled in quickly. I didn’t know that the open air opera was very popular around here. We were waiting for about two hours before the opera started, and in the meantime, some of us were wondering around to check out the arena from inside, or going out to the street again to get some booze and wine. We just chilled inside the arena, eating our chocolate and truffles and staring at the thousand year stone structure surrounding us.
Sitting on a slab of stone without ample room for legs and no armrest or back was a painful experience after a while. I realized that modern convenience and designs made us happy but spoiled. But when the opera started, I completely forgot the seating situation. The amphitheater was designed to be perfect for acoustic; everywhere you were on stage singing without any microphones or any modern equipment,
the voice would be carried on throughout the arena. How did these people 2,000 years ago think of this? It started to get dark, and the lighting was spectacular.
It was overwhelming, and although we couldn’t exactly know what was going on with the opera (even though Meredith had a guide book on Turandot, but we were too busy observing the stage as many things were happening at once with the singer. We finally reached the final chapter of the opera when rain started to pour, and they had to call the opera off and covered up the whole stage. We were not only missing out the final word of the Turandot, but also drenching wet. What a closure for our Verona trip.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Thanks for reminding what the interior of Rotunda looked like