This ancient Roman amphitheater, the third largest after the Colosseum and the amphitheater in Capua, can accommodate up to 30,000 spectators, although current capacity is limited to 15,000. Over its 2,000-year history, the venue has been used as a gladiator arena, a circus, and an execution site. Since 1913, it has regularly hosted operas.
Efforts to restore the arena's function as an opera venue began during the Renaissance. By the 1850s, its exceptional acoustics had already facilitated several operatic performances. In 1913, Italian opera tenor Giovanni Zenatello and impresario Ottone Rovato passionately revived the arena's operatic tradition. The first 20th-century opera staged there was Giuseppe Verdi's Aida on 10 August 1913, commemorating the centennial of Verdi's birth in 1813. Esteemed composers Puccini and Mascagni were in attendance. Since then, the arena has hosted summer opera seasons annually, except during the war years of 1915–18 and 1940–45. Today, the arena features at least four, and sometimes up to six, opera productions each year between June and August.
Comfortable seats are available at the bottom, but you can also sit on the authentic stone steps for a cheaper option.
In recent times, the arena has also hosted several concerts of international rock and pop bands including Bruce Springsteen, Eros Ramazzotti, Laura Pausini, Pink Floyd, Simple Minds (whose concert film Verona was filmed at the venue during their Street Fighting Years Tour in 1989), Duran Duran, Deep Purple, The Who, Dire Straits, Mike Oldfield, Rod Stewart, Sting, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Peter Gabriel, Björk, Muse, Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney, Jamiroquai, Whitney Houston.
Photo: Claconvr (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arena_Anfiteatro.XE3F1912a.jpg)
