Amazing Day (sorry it's such a long post but there's video and photos at the end)

This was one of those days that makes a trip like this worthwhile. We'd heard that the piazza where we'd eaten dinner last night had a market with fruits and vegetables and such, so we went to check it out this morning. There were no fruits and vegetables to be had, bit lots of t-shirts and souvenirs. But Verona is still beautiful. The sidewalks are alternating white and pinks marble slabs.

From there we headed off to Cimignano, a resort town on Lake Garda. The lake district is a place I'd like to explore at some point, but for this trip we got just a taste. Cimignano is on a 2-mile long spit sticking out into the south end of the lake. It is a town with Roman ruins and a bunch of medieval buildings, including a pretty little castle where you go across the drawbridge to enter the town. When we got there it was kind of cloudy and not terribly crowded. I commented that if it had been 90 degrees and sunny we never would have come close to the place.

The plantings and landscaping and lake views with the Alps on the other side were magical. We walked all around and saw a few places where Ronnie could take pictures, but it was too cloudy, so we stopped to have lunch and as we did, it got gradually brighter and brighter and by the time we finished it was almost sunny, so we went back and Ronnie took her pictures. A very successful trip, but by the time we left it had gotten so crowded we could hardly get out the gate.

After a nap, we got ready for our evening's activity- a trip to the Verona Opera Festival. I have to set the scene. There's most of the remains of a Roman arena here, and about 90 years ago they decided to start putting on opera there. The arena sits on the edge of one of the main square, called Piazza Bra. Make up your own joke. You can sit on the Piazza and have dinner and watch the crowd. Restaurants in Italy will let you sit at your table almost indefinitely unless you ask for the check, so it's great for checking out the outfits headed to the opera. We saw gowns and long dresses and suave Italian guys with their jackets over their shoulders. We saw lots and lots of people.

Dinner was good. I actually had some meat for once. It was a very simple grilled and sliced steak topped with shaved parmesan and greens. Just right for me. I also had tiramisu for the first time this trip. I'm not a big tiramisu fan, but this was very tasty. Then it was time to stroll across the street to the arena.

The opera we saw was Carmen. This is probably the most famous opera ever and I know the music pretty well, but nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for what we saw. I think the word "spectacle" can be overused. I never want to hear anyone else say that Justin Timberlake and a dozen dancers is a spectacle. A spectacle is a cast of 300 people with donkeys and horses (and not horses just standing there either- these horses danced with the flamenco dancers), sets designed by Franco Zefferelli covering a stage that must have been well over 100 feet square with extra area on the left and right, where there was always something else going on beyond what was happening center stage. Of course, all of this is happening in a 2000 year old theater with folding chairs on the floor (I guess where the gladiators used to fight but their folding chairs probably weren't padded) and the cheap "seats" are on stone benches. It was a clear and perfect night with a star-filled sky and a slight breeze, they were doing a brisk business in fleece blankets.

And the music? They had a 10o piece orchestra (5 harps!) with an energetic conductor with long silvery hair. They were spot on, and the singers filled a 15,000 seat arena with absolutely no amplification. All of the leads were great, but especially Carmen, who was electrifying. The production numbers you can get a taste of from the video/ I just had this huge grin on my face the whole time.

A few notes:

The opera started at 9:15. Because it's outside and it has to be dark for full effect, that when it's got to start. Everybody got that? Opera? Beginning at 9:15? How long you think that's gonna take? Plus they had these massive set changes between each of the (4!) acts, so add an hour to the performance right there. At one point, the guy sitting next to me asked if we knew when the performance was scheduled to end, I offered 7:00. He was not amused and he left after 3 acts at midnight. We stayed until the end with no regrets and left the arena at 1:10. At that point every ice cream joint and bar on the Piazza Bra had a huge influx of customers for whom they were clearly ready. Just the usual 1AM rush.

The end of each intermission was signaled by one of the costumed gypsies (I know they were gypsies because they had schmattes on their heads) with a gong. He would play a big flourish and then bang it once when there was 5 minutes to go and twice when there was a minute to go. After each time he would stand up straight, look at the audience with a smile, and bow deeply.

They made announcements in Italian, German and English, including an announcement before the last act for the people in the top tier to not fling their seat cushions down to the floor when they applauded at the end.

They had a guy on the stage crew running out during scenes to clean up the horse poop. I didn't know you could get horses and donkey to walk down steps.

As we walked back to the hotel, we saw that the main street was filled with busses with names in German and some Cyrillic language. The closest countries to Verona are Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Croatia, and I guess they all do day (or night) trips to from Zagreb to Verona. Hope it's a comfortable bus, cause it's about a 5 hour ride.

Here's video:

And here are some pictures:

Verona and the Opera