Verdi Makes Verona a Valhalla for Music Lovers : Spectacular Roman amphitheater hosts Europe’s biggest summer festival.

VERONA, Italy —  In an age of proliferating summer music festivals, the two-month Verona Arena Festival remains in a class of its own.

With a Roman amphitheater for a venue, it’s Europe’s biggest festival. The grandiose productions make it the most spectacular. And, in sheer numbers of tickets sold, it’s the most popular by far. All 600,000 of the festival’s performance tickets last year were esaurito (sold out).

To meet the ever-expanding demand, the festival organizer, Ente Lirico Arena di Verona, this year added 11 performance nights to the July-August schedule, bringing to 51 the total nights of opera, ballet and concerts. This year’s season, Verona’s 70th, includes three Verdi operas--”Don Carlo,” “Aida” and “Nabucco”--and Puccini’s “La Boheme . “ Carl Orff’s ballet “Carmina Burana” will be staged, as will single-night performances of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” Rossini choral music.

A big part of the festival’s appeal derives from the 1st-Century Roman amphitheater in which the productions are staged. The “vast, stony oval,” as an admiring Henry James described it, has crystalline acoustics. Despite the theater’s massive scale, each seat is a good one.

Verona’s is the largest ancient theater, after the Coliseum in Rome, and, except for the outer circle of the arena that was destroyed in 12th-Century earthquakes, the arena and its massive tiers, built of pink and white marble, appear much as they did 19 centuries ago.

The arena has been a source of Veronese civic pride at least since the 15th Century, when restoration efforts began in earnest. It is a tribute to that pride that the theater’s blocks of stone weren’t looted for palaces, roads and other projects, as was the fate of so many Roman theaters in other cities.

From the top of the amphitheater, one looks over Piazza Bra, the huge public square that was once the Roman forum and which is now lined with outdoor cafes; down Via Mazzini, one of Italy’s first pedestrian shopping streets, and to the medieval part of Verona, with its crenelated roof lines, battlements and bell towers.

The incomparable setting becomes even more spectacular when, on a clear summer evening, the nearby Alps are visible from the top of the 44-tier arena, a backdrop beyond the grasp of the most artful set designer.

The people of Verona regard the great old oval as more than a relic. It’s still a communal focal point and it shares with other great architecture the civilizing effect that was not lost on Goethe. In “Italian Journey,” he wrote: “Such an amphitheater, in fact, is properly designed to impress the people with itself, to make them feel at their best.”

As imposing as the arena is, the opera fans who come back to Verona summer after summer are attracted by something more than the monumental architecture. That has also to do with the Verona festival’s invariably top-notch operatic talent, arrayed in grandiose productions involving casts of hundreds.

Even tourists who don’t know a legato from fettuccine have probably heard about Verona’s “Aida” productions, with their procession of elephants, camels and other live beasts that make a vivid tableau of the opera’s ancient Egyptian setting. To get a foretaste of the Verona spectacle, fans can rent one of the several Verona summer operas recorded on videocassette, including a fabulous 1981 production of “Aida.”

Tourists also are drawn to Verona’s rich and well-preserved blend of Roman, medieval and Renaissance architecture. The amphitheater is only part of Verona’s Roman heritage. The 1st-Century Roman theater, now used for summer theatrical productions, lies on the other side of the Adige River from the old city center, connected by the Ponte della Pietra, one of the few Roman-era bridges still in use.

Several of the city’s Roman gates still stand, the best preserved being the Porta Borsari across the Corso Cavour, with its marbled arcade and niches for statuary, where farmers and merchants were shaken down for tribute and taxes before they were allowed to enter the old city. The Museo Lapidario Maffeiano that so enchanted Goethe has a collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan inscriptions and funerary monuments.

But the city’s biggest single tourism generator, city officials concede, is probably the Capulet house and balcony, where Juliet was supposedly wooed by Romeo. The house, a very well-preserved medieval abode, is mobbed with tourists despite the highly questionable thesis that it was the actual domicile of the family on whom Shakespeare modeled his characters.

Most of the city’s rich lode of medieval architecture is linked to the Scaliger dynasty, which ruled Verona before the city was absorbed into the Milanese and Venetian domains. The Scaligers built the Castelvecchio, a 14th-Century castle that is now the impregnable home of Verona’s municipal art gallery, a depository of Renaissance paintings by Crivelli, Bellini, Tiepolo, Tintoretto, Pisanello and others.

The adjoining Ponte Scaligero, or Scaliger Bridge, is one of Italy’s most picturesque; it spans the Adige River and also dates from the 14th Century. Viewing the castle and bridge from down-river, a visitor can easily envision a cohort of chain-mailed knights doing battle with the emissaries of some neighboring petty tyrant.

The Piazza delle Erbe (Plaza of Herbs) was the medieval market of the city. The imposing structures that surround it include the Palazzo della Ragione (Palace of Justice), with its huge Lamberti Tower--a campanile that looms over the piazza and provides a remarkable view of the city and its environs.

The Scaliger tombs, an unusual set of Gothic funerary monuments, are in a nearby courtyard adjoining the tiny Romanesque Santa Maria Antica , the Scaligers ‘ neighborhood church . Over the doorway of the church is the 14th-Century equestrian statue of the Cangrande della Scala, the greatest Scaliger of them all.

Of the city’s churches, the one most worth visiting is San Zeno Maggiore, a Romanesque gem with an Andrea Mantegna triptych and bronze 11th-Century doors depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments. The duomo, or cathedral, features Titian’s “Assumption of the Virgin,” one of the Venetian master’s greatest and most dramatic altarpieces.

Verona is not an inconvenient stop: It’s on a rail crossroads that make it easily accessible by train, only two hours from Milan, 90 minutes from Venice, five hours from Rome and seven hours from Munich.

But those considering a Verona trip are well advised to line up tickets in advance. Even with another 170,000 tickets available this year, festival press chief Claudio Capitini expects this summer’s festival to sell out as well. Although the arena seats 16,000, the opera and concert dates are typically sold out by the day of performance.

GUIDEBOOK

Virtues of Verona

Getting there: American Airlines and Delta each have several flights per week from Los Angeles to Milan, the closest major airport to Verona. Both airlines offer round-trip fares of $848 if purchased by Friday. The two-hour train ride from Milan to Verona costs about $45 round trip, first-class. Those wishing to fly all the way to Verona may do so on Alitalia from Los Angeles via Rome. Cheapest round-trip fare: $1,250.

How to get tickets: Book as soon as possible. Write or fax for a schedule and price list: Biglietteria (ticket office), Ente Arena di Verona, Piazza Bra, 28, Verona 37100, Italy. The telephone number from the United States is 011-39-45-590-966 or 45-590-726. Fax: 011-39-45-590-201. English spoken.

With schedules in hand, fans can send an international money order to the ticket office to cover the cost, indicating the preferred dates of performances, sectors and number of tickets. Prices range from $12 to $168 each.

This summer’s performance dates are as follows:

Operas: “Don Carlo:” July 1, 4, 10, 12, 18, 24, 30; Aug. 9, 12, 21, 29.

“La Boheme:” July 3, 5, 11, 16, 22, 25, 28; Aug. 1, 8, 15, 20, 26, 30.

“Aida:” July 17, 19, 21, 23, 26, 29, 31; Aug. 2, 6, 11, 13, 16, 18, 23, 25, 28.

“Nabucco:” Aug. 7, 14, 19, 22, 27.

Ballet: “Carmina Burana:” Aug. 19-22.

Concerts: “Dedicated to Rossini:” Aug. 17; “Porgy and Bess:” Aug. 24.

Where to stay: Verona festival and tourism officials recommended two four-star hotels: Grand Hotel, Via Porta Nuova 115, tel. 45-595-600, and Colomba d’Oro, Via Catteneo 8, tel. 45-595-300. Rooms are in the $200-per-night range, double occupancy. Three-star: Hotel Europa, Via Roma 8, tel. 45-594-744; Hotel Mastino, Corso Porta Nuova 16, tel. 45-595-388. Rooms cost about $140 a night, double occupancy.

Where to dine: Three restaurants recommended by festival and tourism officials are all on or near the Piazza Bra, facing the amphitheater: Ristorante Bologna, Torcolo and Dodici Apostoli (Twelve Apostles).

For more information: For information on Verona, including a list of hotels, write Azienda di Promozione Turistica, Via Leoncino 61, Verona 37100, Italy, tel. 45-592-828. The English-speaking staff is very helpful.

For general information on Italy, contact the Italian Government Travel Office, 360 Post St., Suite 801, San Francisco 94108, (415) 392-6206. This office also will mail photocopies of Verona festival schedules and other information, including ticket prices.