CET Student Correspondent News: La Traviata in Verona

We don't have classes on Fridays, but last Friday our program arranged to take us to Verona for the day. We met up in the morning and shared a bus that took us through Italy for about 3 hours until we reached Verona!

The whole group in front of the Arena

Liz in front of Juliet's House

We walked through the pretty town and went to "Juliet's House". Romeo and Juliet was set in Verona, and apparently it was somewhat based on an actual couple from similarly feuding families. So this house was one that had belonged to the family that the Capulets were based on. There was a little balcony and also a bronze statue of "Giulietta". 

Then four of us broke off to go to la Torre dei Lamberti, a giant clock tower that has 368 steps - we chose to do them instead of take the elevator, and once you start there's no changing your mind. The view from up there was beautiful. You could see red roofs everywhere, and even the Arena - a Roman amphitheater that still hosts shows. 

The view from the top of the Torre dei Lamberti

From above we could see a crowd gathering around some building, so after going back down we went to check it out. Some police officers let us know it was the president, Giorgio Napolitano's hotel room. People were waiting for him to come outside, but we didn't stick around. 

We checked out the Adige river, and after some more exploring of the small center of the city, we stopped for some pizza and a couple of my friends got coffee. We were on our way to see an opera with our group that would last until past midnight, so they wanted some caffeine to keep them up. The opera was in the Roman amphitheater - the Arena. 

Robyn and me from our seats in the Arena

We sat really high up and off to the side, so the stage wasn't actually facing us, but we could still hear everything and they weren't using microphones. The Romans had acoustics figured out pretty well, I guess! The opera was Verdi's "La Traviata". Of course we couldn't understand the words, but the synopsis was fine and the singing, dancing, and stage were all beautiful! The bus ride back took longer than expected, and we didn't actually get in bed that night until 5 am!

Laura Kaufman, 

Vanderbilt University 

History of Art & Italian Studies in Florence, Summer 2011