Blogs

We arrived in Bardolino on Lake Garda and booked into our Hotel Catulo (named after the Roman poet Catullus). An excellent room with a balcony overlooking the gardens, promenade and lakes (alongside the old tower - the centre of the original village).

In the afternoon Tom Foort, our Page and Moy Courier/Guide, showed our party around Bardolino with music being played by a small band in the town square.

The following day - Friday - after breakfast we took a steamer across the lake to Garda, where a market was spread all along the promenade. There was a mix of stalls selling everything from fruit, vegetables, clothes, shoes and antiquities. My wife Pat found a shoulder bag and a white top, all for 20,000 lr. before we stopped for drinks on the promenade. Ferryboat back to Bardolino and a welcome breeze on the water.

Our package tour included three operas performed in the Amphitheatre in Verona on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. The first two were Verdi operas - Nabucco and Aida followed by Bizet's Carmen on Sunday night. This Carmen was to be directed by Franco Zefirelli.

After lunch on Friday our group were to meet in the car park for our coach trip to Verona. On arrival at the car park in 35deg. heat, we were told by Tom that the coach's air conditioning had broken down. As we waited for a replacement coach Tom advised that the scheduled guided tour around Verona before the opera would be severely curtailed, and we had no choice but to sit in the nearby cafe until the new coach arrived.

At 4.15 our coach arrived complete with 'working' air conditioning and we were off to Verona.

Arriving in this famous old Italian town we parked off Piazza Bra and had a brief Tom-led tour around the City centre including Piazza des Erbe and Casa de Guilietta (Juliet's Balcony). We were then free to wander around the shops and stalls in the squares.

Bought a hat (yes, another one!) at thr famous Borsalino hat shop in Piazza des Erbe. We then bought foam cushions for the Arena steps - these were ostentatiously carried around Verona in the Borsalino carrier bag.

Returning to Piazza Bra, Pat joins a long queue for the Arena's 'entrada gradinata' - the hoi polloi entrance, but I also spy another entrance with a very short queue. This obviously leads to the steps in the part of the Amphitheatre that Tom had told us would have been in the Sun all day. We join this queue.

At 7pm the crowds start to get excited - the gates are opening. Our gate 27 is still closed, but since we are now so close to the entrance we slip across to gate 23 along with a few others, much to the dismay of the gate 27 queue.

We ignore the boos and 'push in'. We are now inside the Arena long before the other queues and are able to move around to the cooler steps before they are filled up.

We settle for steps half way up with a clear view of the stage. We now start the long wait!. The performance of Nabucco starts at 9pm - just under two hours to kill.

We settle down, with our bottoms on our very welcome foam cushions and start to tuck into bananas, nectarines, oranges, mineral water and ice creams.

The atmosphere in the Arena is electric! Around us are Italians, Germans, English, French and Colonials - Ozzies and Kiwis. The touts are selling everything from pizzas and ham rolls, Opera libretti, T-shirts, beers, cokes ....and plastic macs!

The Germans around us - in true Teutonic style - are well organised. Wine bottles and cork screws, sponsored foam cushions with Porsche logos, and large Adidas hold-alls carrying their complete survival kit.

We have a plastic bag with some fruit and a bottle of water - we shall be better equipped for Aida tomorrow night.

By 8pm the steps of the Arena are full, the sun has dropped below the lip of the Aena wall and it is comfortable - albeit still hard on the bum!

The seats on the floor of the Arena and the numbered seats on the side are beginning to fill up.

There is a noticeable change in fashion styles. The 'numericol gradinata' supplement has its privileges - punters can arrive between 8pm and 9pm knowing their seats are reserved, and they can don their glad rags if they are prepared to trust the weather forecast - for the Verona Roman Amphitheatre - unlike Covent Garden - has no roof!

Clearly, these people come to the Opera, not to see, but to be seen; for undoubtedly the best views of the stage are from the steps ....and the higher the better; and the acoustics of the Amphitheatre are such that we heard every word - even if we couldn't understand it.

The beautiful people in the stalls really pullout all the stops, dress wise.

Whilst we all sit in our shorts and sandals - it's still very hot and humid - the glitterati arrive in their little black sequinned numbers and large flowered hats - and it seems the larger the ladies the brighter their frocks.

The highlight of the glitterati grand entrance was a fifty plus cross between Montserrat Caballe and a canary.

During one of the intervals we saw an obvious first timer wearing a beautiful, and no doubt expensive powder blue gownless evening strap, totally oblivious of the fact that her creation clashed horribly with the extra large cherry red plastic Coke cup she was nursing in her lap.

Apparently, the male of the Opera going species also has a de rigeur code of dress. If dinner suits are worn they must never put the jacket on but have it draped nonchalantly across the shoulders. In spite of these glitzi's moving up and down the ailes in their droves, the fact that their jackets never parted company with their owners suggested to us that they superglued them to their shirts before they left home.

Based on the old adage that horses sweat, men perspire and ladies merely glow, among the overdressed that night, few were glowing and most had left their carts behind!

It was nearing 9 o'clock. J. Arthur had thumped his gong twice, and the orchestra were taking their seats.

The regulars around us, mainly Italians, were turning their heads to the skies, looking at the darkening clouds and mumbling whatever the Italian equivalent of 'the Gods are getting angry'. And indeed they were.

The flags of the Veneto region were horizontal on their poles and the first rumblings of thunder were heard. But we were unconcerned - Tom had promised that the weather - based on the forecast in the Italian daily paper - was going to be fine. Obviosly the Gods don't take the same paper for the weather was threatening to be anything but fine.

The Babylonian timekeeper had hit his gong for the third time to cheers from the plebs, the orchestra music stand lights were on and the main floodlights gradually faded.

This was clearly the signal for candles to be lit all around the terraced steps - a tradition going back perhaps even to Roman times.

The candle lighting, however, did not extend to the stalls - dripping candle wax probably doesn't improve the glitter of sequins!

The Maestro entered the Arena dressed immaculately in white tie and black tails, and was greeted with thunderous applause, in much the same way as the leading gladiator would have been greeted entering up the very same stone steps some 2000 years earlier.

As 10,000 candles twinkled and the opening bars of Verdi's operatic masterpiece drifted across the silent Arena, we felt the first drops of rain down the backs of our necks.

Act 1 of Nabucco came to an end with no adverse weather effect, although by now the wind was gusting and the thunder and lightning had arrived too early to augment the lighting director's atmospheric stage effects.

The rain steadily increased, and then came the announcement that the performance would be suspended, since even a small amount of rain can damage valuable musical instruments.

Since we had taken Tom's forecast as gospel, we had no wet weather clothing, so decided to move down under the shelter of the arches until the rain subsided. It didn't. It got worse!

The heavens opened and even the die hards who were still on the steps braving it with their umbrellas, fishing capes and waterproofs, were forced to come into the arches in their droves soaked to the skin.

The Gods were really angry about something. In fact on a scale of 1 - 10 of Gods' anger they had scored full marks.

The hailstones were like Birds Eye frozen peas - only harder! Any umbrellas still open were quickly converted into sieves, and later we were to see car bonnets with a beautiful pebbledash paint job!

Thankful at our quick action when the rain started, we were feeling very dry, very smug and very sorry for the people around us who were literally wringing out their underwear.

Herr and Frau Doppelganger didn't look quite so well organised now. He with his deep blue Hugo Boss sweatshirt changing the colour of his white shorts to pale blue stripes and the same colour combination continuing past his knees and on down to his ankles.

The first floor balcony of the arches where we were sheltering looked out across Piazza Bra with its central gardens and wide roads now awash with at least 3 inches of water.

The Verona Opera programme has different operas on consecutive nights. Friday night's performance of Nabucco was to be followed by Aida and Carmen.

The stage sets for these productions are vast - Aida's obelisks and statues of Isis stand 30 - 40 feet high. Since storage space is at a premium at the Amphitheatre, traditionally the sets for the other two performances are stacked around the outside of the Arena in Piazza Bra, awaiting their turn to be taken into the Arena and erected.

As we looked out across the rain soaked Piazza, the props for Carmen - dog carts, wooden carriages, tables and chairs were looking very sad. Suddenly a gust of wind caught the canvas of a wooden horse cart and it broke through its metal fence enclosure and started rolling down the road heading straight for a parked tourist coach.

Fortunately, before the cart reached the coach its wheels caught the kerb and swung it round to an abrupt halt.

Within half an hour the rain started to ease and finally stopped. The thunder clouds began to clear and it was announced that the performance would resume in twenty minutes. We all started to make our way back to our seats on the steps, bedraggled, but thankful the performance could still continue. Once the Opera started again the audience appeared to have forgotten the rainy interruption and the rest of the evening was a great success.

Let's hope there would be no repeat dramas for the next two visits to Verona!