Nights at the Opera : A fan’s dream trip to eight theaters in Italy, where the art form is a national passion.

ROME —  Applauding wildly in my box seat in the Teatro dell’Opera of Rome after a performance of Puccini’s “La Boheme,” I couldn’t believe I’d been lucky enough to see it. There on the edge of the curving, flood-lit stage, the great soprano Mirella Freni was bowing to curtain calls after performing her signature role, Mimi. Given Freni’s age--57--the applause was as much for a career as a performance.

It didn’t much matter that the diva, petite and matronly, didn’t quite fit the image of a consumptive Parisian coquette. To have heard that voice even in the autumn of her career was an unforgettable thrill.

The minute the curtain fell, 1,600 people were out of their plush, velvet-covered seats and on their feet, leaning over the balconies of the boxes, pressing up against the orchestra pit, seemingly about to spill onto the stage. For 10 minutes, we showered Freni with carnations and bravas , savoring the memory of the music and the spettacolo.

Around midnight, I walked out of the theater and into the cool Roman night, still in a trance. The magic of the performance, the friendliness of my Italian box mates, the incomparable atmosphere of the 112-year-old theater with its gilded box seats and high, frescoed ceiling had worked their magic on my emotions.

There had been magic as well in le donne romane, the gorgeous, sophisticated Roman women draped in furs, black silks and diamonds, who paraded through the foyer at intermezzo with the self-conscious glamour of actresses awaiting a casting call. I studied them closely between glances at some correspondence of “La Boheme” composer Giacomo Puccini, on display under glass in the foyer.

I’d paid the $120 ticket price only after some agonizing at the box office the day before. It had been one of only a few seats left and situated in the palco di platea, the first level of box seats and among the best in the house. Since the performance was a sellout, these tickets were available only because an indisposed patron had returned them.

Damn the cost, I thought, as I forked over the lire. Memories such as this don’t come cheaply.

Afterward, walking down Via Nazionale toward my hotel near the Capitoline Hill, I was glad I did. There was no place on earth I’d rather have been.

So went one of my notte favolose (fantastic nights) at the Italian opera during my ultimate fantasy trip: a three-week pilgrimage to eight Italian theaters, where I was lucky enough to see six operas.

The trip, in late February of this year, was expensive-- cari s simo!-- as is any time spent in Italy these days. But I remember it for much more than just the wonderful music of six operas. An American opera fan, I got to see, firsthand, the history and spectacle of the great opera houses of Italy, and to sit with Italian fans, for whom opera is both a national passion and pastime. And the social sphere I gained entree to was not exclusively snobbish and upper class, contrary to what many Americans might expect. Yes, I rubbed shoulders with the jeweled cosmopolites of Rome, but also with the blue-collar, notorious loggianisti , the denizens of the upper gallery at Parma’s Teatro Regio, who delight in whistling their displeasure at performers’ miscues.

I saw firsthand how appropriate was author Spike Hughes’ metaphor of an Italian opera audience as a “giant cat” that loudly purrs its approval, or mercilessly spits and growls its disapprobation.

Since few Italian theaters seat more than 1,200, there was an intimacy between the audience and performers that I’d never found in U.S. theaters, which are likely to seat 3,000 and more. The lengthy intermissions give one ample opportunity to strike up conversations--especially if your Italian is serviceable--and exchange opinions over a caffe or grappa .

The scene in Rome, for example, included lots of aloof young men, there to be seen, dressed in obligatory black suits, black silk or linen shirts, white scarves, cigarettes-as-props dangling from their fingers. In Parma, a friendly and stolid middle-class couple in their early 30s--he was an accountant, she worked in a bank--were stunned to make my acquaintance: I was the first American they had ever seen at their theater.

At Bologna’s Teatro Comunale, a tall, vivacious teen-age girl accompanied by several of her friends--her parents had given them the box for the evening--sympathized as I bemoaned the high cost of visiting her country. Hey, Italians can’t afford Italy either, understand? Ha capito? she said.

It was my first trip back to Italy since I attended an American university extension there 20 years ago, and I found the “villainous improvements” that Henry James railed about 100 years ago definitely accelerating. Indeed, the great old opera houses seemed to be among the few bastions resisting the creeping modernity.

Despite intermittent fires, aerial bombings and other disasters, most of Italy’s opera houses appear as they did when they opened, which in some cases was more than two centuries ago. La Fenice, Venice’s “jewel box,” celebrates its 200th birthday this year. Milan’s La Scala retains the neoclassic elegance that dates from 1778. San Carlo in Naples, an adjunct to the royal palace built by the Bourbons in 1737, has been in operation longer than any theater in Europe. But dates do little to explain the mystique that the theaters embody. It’s more that the great houses are part and parcel of the legendary singers, musicians and conductors who have performed in them. And the theaters fiercely guard, cultivate and promote those legends.

Teatro Comunale in Florence regards itself as where Maria Callas got her start, in 1948 as Norma. Teatro Regio in Parma claims to have discovered the great Roman tenor Beniamino Gigli in a 1914 vocal competition. It was at Teatro Comunale in Bologna, in the early 1930s, that conductor Arturo Toscanini received his infamous slap from a member of the orchestra, for refusing to conduct the Fascist anthem.

As an opera buff, I’d always wanted to be part of these scenes. But the time, cost and sheer logistics of lining up opera tickets and arranging an itinerary were daunting. My Italian, never that great and now molto rugginoso (very rusty) from 20 years of disuse, was another source of worry.

I never considered the alternative--going on one of the many organized group tours of opera houses--as it failed my sense-of-adventure test. The accommodations offered on the tours were typically deluxe and off my affordability scale, anyway.

Finally, I decided to go on my own, to just show up in the eight cities I wanted to visit, with almost no advance plans or reservations, and trust to luck that I would somehow get tickets. I knew only that the theaters would be in midst of their seasons, which typically run from November through June.

The trip turned out to be an unqualified triumph even if some theaters were dark on the days that I was there and others were hopelessly sold out. But I was still able to see half a dozen performances, experiences I will treasure always. As long as I tried out my Italian, people were only too willing to help.

With a little more planning--writing to opera houses for schedules and booking tickets in advance--opera fans can travel to Italy with much more certainty of seeing shows than I had. (See Guidebook, L21.)

I started at La Fenice in Venice, then headed south by train to Teatro Comunale in Bologna, thence to Teatro dell’Opera in Rome. Teatro San Carlo in Naples was my southernmost stop, followed by Teatro Comunale in Florence and Teatro Regio in Parma. I then headed to Teatro Regio in Turin before ending up at La Scala in Milan.

I should say that it was a completely arbitrary selection of theaters that left out some that I would love to have seen, including Teatro Massimo in Palermo and Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa.

VENICE La Fenice

My first stop, Venice’s La Fenice, was closed the week I was in the Veneto region, so I missed a night at what is purportedly the most beautiful theater in Italy, perhaps on earth. After pleading with a security guard, I was told the theater management does not allow even furtive peeks inside.

With only 850 seats, La Fenice is called the jewel box for its intimate, ornate ambience. The name--which means phoenix in English--comes from the fact that La Fenice was built to replace a theater that burned down. As enigmatic as the city, La Fenice is situated on tiny Campo San Fantin square, at the heart of the Venetian labyrinth, and is bordered by a canal. Patrons still arrive by gondola for premieres and other special evenings.

I had to content myself, however, with a view of the unprepossessing facade and portico, which I almost certainly would have passed by had I not known exactly what to look for, a perfect example of the Venetian masque --the way great things in the city are either hard to find or carefully obscured.

I was disappointed because the theater is as rich in history as ornamentation. I wanted to envision Napoleon sitting in the royal box; Lord Byron disporting with Teresa Guiccioli, the Venetian countess whom he had seduced and with whom he held rendezvous in various palchi, the five tiers of boxed seats above orchestra level. I had hoped to summon the shades of Rossini, Verdi, Wagner and Stravinsky, all of whom loved La Fenice.

BOLOGNA Teatro Comunale

I was able to get an opera ticket in Bologna for “Roberto Devereux,” Donizetti’s opera about Queen Elizabeth’s fatal love affair with Devereux, the Earl of Essex (fatal for him, that is), only because a friend who lives there got it for me in advance. The house was packed for this impressive costume drama.

For a number of reasons, a ticket to a Bologna opera performance is one of the toughest in all of Italy to get. First, the theater is small, only 1,008 seats, and the city is large, nearly 500,000 in population. And the Emilia-Romagna province, of which Bologna is the capital, is filled with music clubs, amici della musica , whose die-hard members snap up bunches of opera tickets in subscriptions months in advance, leaving precious few for the walk-up traffic. Also making tickets scarce is the ascendancy of the theater’s reputation under music director Riccardo Chailly, who has built Teatro Comunale’s musical stature to a level second only to La Scala’s.

Operating since 1763, Teatro Comunale is in the medieval part of the city near the University of Bologna, the country’s oldest. The portico of the charming, terra-cotta-colored theater forms part of the system of arcades, high enough for a man on horseback to pass under, that run throughout much of the city.

ROME Teatro dell’Opera

This house underwent an unfortunate reconstruction in 1928, replacing a suitably ornate Beaux Arts facade and foyer with an institutional Fascist look that resembles all-too-closely the nearby Termini train station.

But Rome’s opera theater boasts a powerhouse orchestra, an unparalleled stable of regular performers and a reputation for great acting and production. With a capacity of 1,600 and the variety of other Roman entertainment options, chances are better of getting tickets here than at most Italian theaters.

In addition to “La Boheme,” I saw a production of Rossini’s “Barber of Seville” that received rave notices, even in a season full of Rossini productions up and down the nation in honor of the composer’s bicentennial.

NAPLES Teatro di San Carlo

Teatro San Carlo has been in continuous operation longer than any other opera theater in Europe. Built in 1737--41 years before La Scala and 55 years before La Fenice--San Carlo has never had a season completely canceled, not even by a disastrous fire in 1816 nor by World War II.

In the early years of the war, San Carlo performances were held in daytime to observe the blackout. After the British occupied the city in 1943, the general in charge, Brigadier U.S. Cripps, specifically ordered that concerts and operas continue, earning a special place in Neopolitans’ hearts.

Adjoining the Royal Palace built by the Bourbon Kings of the Two Sicilies, the theater is built entirely of wood and stucco, with six levels of boxes; its acoustics are said to be incomparable. The ceiling is decorated with a stunning 1854 fresco, “Apollo presenting the great poets of the world to Minerva,” by Giuseppe Cammarano, which arches overhead in shades of rose, aquamarine and burnished gold.

Alas, the theater was closed on the Saturday I visited and I was not allowed a look inside. Like most opera houses in Italy, San Carlo stages only one opera at a time, and I was unlucky enough to pass through town during a two-week gap in the production schedule.

But what a sight from outside. The 13th-Century fortress, Castel Nuovo, is a neighbor to the east, and to the immediate south is the Bay of Naples, with the volcano Vesuvius looming beyond. I decided to console myself with a day trip to the island of Capri, a 30-minute hydrofoil ride from the harborfront, which itself was just a five-minute walk from the theater.

FLORENCE Teatro Comunale

Not every opera in Italy sells out.

An hour before a performance at Florence’s Teatro Comunale, I easily bought an $8 standing-room ticket at the box office for Giordano’s “Andrea Chenier,” a turgid French Revolution drama that left me cold. Once the curtain went up, I just as easily moved to one of several empty seats in the top gallery level.

The highlight for me at Teatro Comunale, however, was the intermezzo . Because between acts, it is the wonderful custom of this cavernous, modern (1961) opera house to open a cafeteria where patrons can fortify themselves on risotto , panini (bread with thin slices of ham) and other light snacks. For less than $5, I had a bowl of delicious penne al pomodoro, a pasta dish with a light tomato sauce--an incredible bargain by Italian standards, one of the few that I encountered on my trip. We ate casually, standing up. As I surveyed the crowd, I was again struck, as I had been in Bologna, by how many couples brought their young children along. The informal crowd and the food were the big reasons why the atmosphere in Florence was the most comfortable of any theater that I visited.

PARMA Teatro Regio

Parma’s opera fans relish their reputation as the most discerning and merciless in Italy. They spare no one, not even megastar homeboy Carlo Bergonzi. About 30 years ago, after a rough night as “Otello,” Bergonzi is said to have had to carry his own bags through the Parma train station because a porter recognized him, then remonstrated about Bergonzi’s performance before dropping the tenor’s luggage.

It was with morbid fascination, then, that I attended “Madama Butterfly” starring Raina Kabaivanska as Cio-Cio San. The Russian veteran started shakily, and from my orchestra-level seat, I could hear the murmurs build in the upper gallery . If things got much worse, the fans would begin to whistle, even throw things at the stage, I’d been told. Fortunately, Kubaivanska warmed to the role and the evening ended in a resounding triumph.

A highly cultured city of 180,000, Parma takes its musical patrimony seriously. Verdi grew up 20 miles away in Busseto, and Arturo Toscanini is a native son. Audiences have inherited their no-nonsense, severe approach.

The theater itself has a graceful neoclassic design, and was completed in 1829 during the 30-year reign of Duchess of Parma Marie Louise, Napoleon’s first wife. On the walls of the bar on the top balcony level are photos signed by opera stars as tributes to the loggianisti , the country’s sternest fans.

There are only three operas in Parma’s season, instead of the five to eight at most houses, partly because the theater’s budget comes mainly from the municipal treasury. In that sense, Parma is different from most of Italy’s other major houses, which receive up to 80% of their operating budgets from the Italian government. But because Parma is not the provincial capital, it doesn’t receive the huge state subsidy; Bologna does.

More than half of the Teatro Regio’s 114 boxes are still owned by the aristocratic families who, 160 years ago, helped Duchess Marie Louise finance the theater’s construction. The boxes are like condominiums, and their owners are assessed stiff annual assessments for the privilege of maintaining them. They include anterooms where patrons can slip out for a drink, a smoke or a card game.

Parma was my favorite stop because of its delightful opera, people and food. Two other reasons were that I found a clean, affordable hotel half a block from the theater (Hotel Torino, Via A. Mazza, $60 a night, single room with bath), and a marvelous, not-too-outrageously priced restaurant that was frequented by the theater crowd (Trattoria Corrieri, Via Conservatorio, about $35 per person including wine and tip).

I was even able to fit in a trip to the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, an hour away by train, and stand in the room where Monteverdi’s “Orfeo,” the oldest opera still being performed, had its premiere in 1607.

TURIN Teatro Regio

One of the most refreshing things about Italian audiences is that they are into the discovery mode--as keenly interested in recognizing new talent as they are in worshiping established stars.

Hence my conversations at the theater bars during intermissions would inevitably gravitate to who was the “next Callas.”

In Turin, all the attention was focused on up-and-coming soprano Norma Fantini, whom I saw perform in Berlioz’s “Damnation of Faust . “ A native of the Piedmont province of which Turin is the capital, the tall blonde was a sensation as Margherita, the object of Faust’s desire in Berlioz’s dramatic story.

An equally big thrill of my Turin visit was seeing the theater, the most modern in Italy. Teatro Regio’s opening in 1973 finally provided Turin opera with the permanent home it had lacked since 1936, when a cataclysmic fire destroyed the original 200-year-old Teatro Regio.

With crystal stalactites hanging from the ceiling and its red oval proscenium, Teatro Regio looks like a cross between Plato’s cave and a flying saucer. The acoustics were marvelous, and the high-tech staging was mind-boggling.

MILAN

La Scala

This inviolate shrine of Italian opera is a must stop for opera goers, even those too unlucky or poor to get tickets, which last season sold for as much as $168 each at the ticket window and much higher from scalpers who hover in profusion beneath the theater’s neoclassic arcade on performance nights.

There was no opera on the nights in early March that I visited Milan. But Carlo Maria Giulini was leading the La Scala orchestra in a Beethoven concert, an experience a scalper was willing to make available to me for a mere $150, about $40 over the face value of the seat. I told the scalper I wasn’t going to pay that kind of money to hear Beethoven’s Fifth for the 200th time, even if it was Giulini conducting at La Scala.

“Different strokes for different folks,” the scalper said in English, walking away and heading straight for a group of Japanese students.

The next day I contented myself with a visit to the La Scala museum situated inside the theater complex. That entitles one to a peak inside the theater itself, one of the few in Italy that accommodates tourists on non-performance days. As I looked on, the stage crew set up scenery for Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut,” which would run later that week after I had returned to the United States.

So my trip ended without a night at La Scala, one of the principal goals I’d set starting out. Thinking back on that and other things I missed, notably a performance at La Fenice, I take comfort from a passage in “Italian Days,” Barbara Grizzuti Harrison’s great travel chronicle of a year spent in Italy, in which she describes the things and places she missed as a “form of insurance.”

“I don’t regret any errors of omission,” Harrison wrote. “I don’t think they are errors. These things and places unseen are amulets I hold against time, the common enemy.”

GUIDEBOOK

Tickets to the Opera

How to get tickets: To secure tickets in advance, write the opera houses directly (addresses below) as far in advance as possible and ask for a programma di stagione, the performance schedule for the season, which typically runs November-June. Replies can take weeks. Or save time by contacting the Italian Government Travel Office, 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Los Angeles 90025, (310) 820-0098, which has schedules for some opera houses and will send copies at no charge. The tourist office will not make reservations or sell tickets, however.

With the schedule in hand, choose at least two performance dates and send partial or total payment in the form of a refundable money order. For best chances of success, especially in theaters such as Parma and Bologna, request a performance that is listed as fuori abbonamento, meaning it is not among those in a subscription series. Maximum purchase in a single order is two to four tickets.

Seats cannot be reserved by telephone; making calls directly to the theaters to request schedules or ask questions is recommended only for those who speak some Italian. Allow for the time difference from the West Coast.

Don’t expect the tickets you get to fit into a neat itinerary; rather, be flexible and adjust your schedule, as much as possible, to the tickets you can get.

The Compagnia Italiana Turismo, a state-run travel agency, does sell La Scala tickets, beginning this month, through its affiliated U.S. travel agencies. However, the cheapest tickets available this past season cost $218 each, which included a $50 commission. Only certain dates were available, and the Southern California affiliate, Merano CIT Tours in Sherman Oaks, will sell tickets only to clients who also book hotel reservations through the agency. Call Merano CIT Tours at (818) 783-0208 for more information. Another travel agency, Europa Tours Specialists in Van Nuys, says its office in Rome can obtain tickets for a surcharge of $20 each; call (818) 997-8880 for information.

Opera fans who want to be absolutely certain of their tickets and itineraries should consider going on one of the many opera tours that include stops in Italy. Many such tours advertise in Opera News magazine, which is sold on newsstands.

To get tickets in Italy, check with the box offices. If the performance is a sellout, keep going back because there are always some returns that are resold. The concierges at upper-class hotels often have tickets or know how to get them. Standing room typically goes on sale an hour or two before the performance. If all else fails, stand outside the theater entrance before curtain time with a sign saying “Bisogno biglietto” (I need a ticket) and look as bereft as possible.

The theaters:

* Bologna: Biglietteria (ticket office), Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Largo Respighi, 1, Bologna 40126 Italy; telephone from the U.S., 011-39-051- 529999; seven productions November-July.

* Florence: Biglietteria, Teatro Comunale di Firenze, Corso Italia, 16, Firenze 50123; telephone 011-39-055-2779236, fax 011-39-055-296954; three operas January-April, two or three during the May-June “Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.”

* Milan: Biglietteria, Teatro alla Scala, Via Filodrammatici, 2, Milano 20121; telephone 011- 39-02-8879211, fax 011-39-02-8879388; 10 operas December-August.

* Naples: Biglietteria, Teatro di San Carlo, Via San Carlo, 98F, Naples 80132, 011-39-081-7972331 or 081/7972332; six operas December-July.

* Parma: Biglietteria, Teatro Regio di Parma, Via Garibaldi, 16, Parma 43100; 011-39-0521-218678; three operas December-April.

* Rome: Biglietteria, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Piazza B. Gigli, 1, Roma 00184; 011-39-06-461755; eight operas January-June.

* Turin: Biglietteria, Teatro Regio Torino, Piazza Castello, 215, Torino 10124; telephone 011-39-011- 8815241, fax 011-39-011-8815214; six operas December-June.

* Venice: Biglietteria, Teatro La Fenice, Campo S. Fantin, Venezia 30121; telephone 011-39-041- 521-0161, fax 011-39-041-522-1768; nine operas over yearlong season that begins in December.