Magical Madama Butterfly

Kathy here- Last night was magical! Seeing Puccini's Madama Butterfly in the open air Roman Arena was a great way to end our short stay in Verona. After resting in the afternoon, we showered and came back to town. Pretty much all our clothes were dirty at this point, since we have been unable (or unwilling maybe) to find laundry services since we left Montepulciano. However, at the bottom of my suitcase I happened to have one little black dress left that I had not worn (too hot for black most of the time). Dressed it up with a beautiful scarf a friend gave me, and voilà ready for the opera.....Iris of course had carefully planned and saved her favourite outfit for Verona, knowing we were going to Giulietta's house, so she looked amazing and, well, Rory being Rory with his groovy new haircut and tall lanky frame can look suave in anything. So were ready. And people do dress up! We had noticed the evening before, people arriving to the Piazza in long gowns, high heels, even the odd suit or two. So we purchased some sandwiches, a delicious and generous slice of lemon and pine nut torte and stuffed it into our backpack containing wine, beer and drinks and headed across the Piazza to the Arena. Far from the opera scene at home, this more resembled a rock concert or sporting event with hawkers outside selling everything, including plastic cushions to sit on the stone seats. So we bought three, complete with a Verona Arena logos. Inside, we climbed up into the cheap seat section where we had purchased, about three quarters of the way up. While we were seated on stone, the next section down had plastic bucket chairs, and the floor section had red carpet and folding seats, for those with reserved seating who breezed in just before the 9:15pm start. We enjoyed our picnic, surrounded by lots of tourists but also lots of Italians, and several more vendors, hopping up and down the stone steps, selling programs, gelato, drinks etc. As the light was fading, people began lighting the little candles everyone had been given upon entry, by passing the flame from one to the next. Soon most of the arena was glowing with small lights. Magical. There was a full orchestra in the pit, including five harps and a great percussion section featuring four lovely nipple gongs of different sizes. A costumed large gong player showed up on stage to play the conductor in. The orchestra tuned up, and the opening scene began. Nothing was amplified and though we were far up we really could hear everything, down to the quietest pianissimo. The exquisite soft orchestral ending to the second act, with all the stage lights dimmed, and the shimmering of fake stars mingling with the real ones overhead took our collective breath away, and in the moment of silence following that act, someone from way across the arena called out " Bravito!", speaking for the whole audience.
We did make it to the end, which was just before midnight, at which point Iris climbed up to the top step of the arena with our iPad and proceeded to connect to the rest of the world via wi-fi. I took a photo of that. Magical, indeed.