Celeste Aida

A friend contacted me yesterday about things to do around Lake Garda and that reminded me of the cultural highlight of my holiday there in 2004; namely, the opera festival at the Arena in Verona.

I had already seen several Verona productions on television but this was the first (and, so far, the only) time I attended a live performance there. Of the ones that were on offer, I chose Aida as I knew from seeing it on television that it offers the best opportunities for a production to capitalise on the spectacular venue - an opera that was written as an extravaganza to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal is well suited to this Roman amphitheatre. Besides, since the kids were press-ganged into coming along, it had to be an opera with reasonably accessible tunes - and with plenty to look at on stage.

The production I'd seen on television had included live elephants but this one by Franco Zeferelli didn't (much to the disappointment of the kids). All the same, while it didn't win the kids over to opera, they did agree that otherwise it was spectacular. The centrepiece was a gold pyramid assembled of steel tubing that revolved to present different faces, according to the scene. For me, though, the most spactacular moment was the point when the sentence for Radames - that he be walled alive in a tomb - was announced. By then it was dark (it's normally still daylight when the production opens). Members of the chorus - dressed entirely in black - had lined up in concentric semicircles on the steps behind the stage and, when the sentence was announced, they stood up and each revealed a white light that had been concealed in their hands until then.

We did the whole thing on the cheap in that we opted to sit on the stone steps rather than paying for proper seats in the flat part of the arena (mind you, even that cost €80). It meant that we really suffered for our art. I'd had the bright idea of bringing along an inflatable airbed that we could sit on but - like many of my great ideas - it didn't really work so we hired cushions instead (they were only €4 at the time and the money went to the Italian Red Cross so what the hell!). If you do go there, though, and opt to sit on the steps I strongly recommend that you check out where the toilet cabins are and get seats on that side. Otherwise, it's a bit of a rush to make it to the loo and back in the interval - especially for the girls (yes I know, you have it so hard).

Despite everything I'd heard about the acoustics in Roman amphitheatres being perfect, it was hard sometimes to hear the soloists. However, it was still a memorable night. All in all, the memory of the production conjures up the cliché, "sex and violence and a cast of thousands" - except that there was no sex and practically no violence! Oh well!