Under Verona’s Stars, Opera Becomes Eternal

A red carpet led through Gate 12 to the press room of the Arena di Verona, giving my first opera the sense of a ceremony before it had even begun. Yet nothing prepared me for entering the nearly 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheater and seeing its stone tiers descend toward an immense stage, as though history itself had opened its arms.

From my seat on the ancient terraces, the Arena became more than a venue. It was the anchoring presence of every performance. Hundreds of singers, dancers and actors could fill the stage and still appear small against its monumental scale. Then the crowd would vanish, leaving one human voice exposed beneath the stars.

That contrast between civilizations built to endure and individual lives destined to pass connected the three operas I attended: Verdi’s Aida and Nabucco, and Puccini’s La Bohème.

My introduction to the 103 rd Arena di Verona Opera Festival 2026 was Stefano Poda’s “Crystal Aida,” a visually daring production that replaced conventional Egyptian pageantry with light, transparency and contemporary symbolism. Black-and-white suits appeared alongside elaborately decorated robes. Red fabric flew through the rain; golden faces, masks and crystallized forms emerged through smoke, steam and shifting fields of red and green light.

Even on a hot July evening, performers moved beneath layers of long, heavy-looking fabric. Their physical commitment was astonishing: running, bowing, climbing and dancing, their bodies continually assembling and dissolving into new formations across the enormous stage.

Two motifs dominated the production: hands and animals. An enormous hand opened and closed over the action, while other hands were carried, raised or created through groups of moving bodies. Dancers crouched, lunged and clustered into animal-like forms, evoking the instinctive nature that still pulses beneath civilization’s polished surface. At times, the stage resembled a living world, part human, part animal, beautiful yet threatening.

The hands could bless, protect and embrace, but they could also command, suppress and destroy. Watching crowds move at the will of a king, I wondered: In a world gone mad, whose voice matters? Against these images, Radamès’ declaration of love became piercingly intimate: “You are the queen of my thoughts; you are the splendor of my life.” While rulers commanded armies and nations fought for dominion, the emotional center remained two people longing to belong to each other.

Aida ultimately brings them together only in death. The spectacle recedes, the human tide grows still, and what remains is love and loss, private, eternal and profoundly human.

Nabucco, also directed and designed by Poda, expanded this vision into an even more athletic display of bodies, power and movement. Figures in white, black and gold filled the stage. Armored performers surged along elevated runways, while fencers lunged and struck with disciplined precision. Others wore sleek bodysuits beneath long, ethereal robes and illuminated headpieces, appearing less like earthly characters than celestial beings descended into a mortal conflict.

Two towering structures of light framed the production like sacred gateways. Red-orange fire, smoke and geometric patterns cut through the darkness, while the Arena’s ancient stones remained visible behind everything. The architecture did not need to be disguised; it lent the drama the weight of vanished empires.

In one unforgettable moment, Nabucco declared himself not merely king, but God. The stage answered with a tremendous explosion, a burst so loud and forceful that it seemed to shake the night itself. It was theatrical spectacle serving the story--human arrogance reaching its summit, only to find an abyss on the other side.

Yet the most revealing line belonged to Abigaille, whose hunger for power concealed a wounded inner life: “Who can restore to me even one day of that lost enchantment?” For a moment, the apparent villain became human again—a woman remembering that she once knew love and compassion.

When “Va, pensiero” rose from the massed chorus, the longing of an exiled people seemed to travel beyond the biblical story and drift into the night. Power changes hands; kingdoms turn to dust. The desire for freedom and home remains.

La Bohème presented a different challenge: How could a vast Roman Arena contain the intimacy of a Parisian attic? Director Alfonso Signorini and set designer Juan Guillermo Nova answered with a transparent, layered world. Garrets, staircases, cafés and snowy streets appeared like a living painting, allowing several planes of activity to remain visible at once.

Hundreds of ensemble performers brought Paris to life simultaneously. While Mimì and Rodolfo’s story unfolded, children sang, vendors worked, diners gathered, friends drank wine, and figures crossed streets or climbed stairways. Everywhere the eye rested, another small life was in motion. The effect was vivid, intricate and grand without overwhelming the central romance.

After the symbolic worlds of Aida and Nabucco, the details of La Bohème—food, candles, laughter, cold hands and a small stove—felt strikingly familiar. “Love alone shall guide us,” the young lovers sing. But their season together proves heartbreakingly brief.

As the final notes faded, I walked out beneath a luminous moon suspended above the Arena’s ancient stones. The Roman builders are long gone. Verdi and Puccini are gone. Generations of performers and audiences have passed through those arches. Yet year after year, people still travel from around the world to gather beneath Verona’s stars.

The scenery changes, but the essential stories do not: love and war, freedom and power, hope and loss. Civilizations rise and disappear. Human lives remain fleeting. Through opera, their voices continue, and within the ancient Arena, they become vibrantly alive again.