A duet between Italian opera and art: as the Verona Arena prepares to open its 2021 summer opera festival, it has announced a collaboration with Italian museums for this much anticipated new season of live performances.
Each title in the calendar will have a reference to or be inspired by one or more top Italian museums and exhibition spaces in Italy and Vatican City by reinterpreting the imposing spaces of the Roman amphitheater symbol of Verona, balancing modern technology with traditional iconography and scenography.
More streamlined settings will be staged, while masterpieces and collections held in museums across Italy will have a role in the narration through spectacular video projections. As museums were also badly hit by the pandemic, they will find new visibility on the unique stage of the Verona Arena.
The 98thAida performed in concert form by Riccardo Muti, to celebrate the 150thanniversary of the first performance of Verdi's masterpiece in Cairo.
After this exhibition, the Opera Festival schedule continues with Cavalleria Rusticana-Pagliacci, Nabucco, La Traviata, Turandot and Aida.
The Vatican Apostolic Library and Sicily’s Archaeological Park of the Valley of the Temples will collaborate to outline the visual context of Sicilian folk culture for Cavalleria Rusticana; Fellini’s influences were chosen for Pagliacci, in collaboration with the Turin Cinema Museum and the Fellini Museum in Rimini, soon to open. For Aida, the Arena Foundation has identified the ideal narrative partner in the Egyptian Museum of Turin, whose collections will serve as a liaison between the Arena’s ancient Roman stones and Egyptian iconography. In Nabucco, it’s the turn of Ferrara’s National Museum of Italian Judaism and of the Shoah (MEIS). The production of Verdi’s masterpiece La Traviata is inspired by research on the female figure thanks to the rich collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
For the Verdi Requiem show, staged only one evening on July 18, the Arena's artistic ensembles will celebrate the 120th anniversary of the composer's death, illuminated by the cultural heritage contained within the Archaeological Site of Paestum and the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.
COVID restrictions were eased to host 6,000 spectators at the Verona Arena.
For the full schedule of the Arena Opera Festival 2021, visit the Arena di Verona website.
