Verona & Zenatello

First I’ll catch you up with the news. We’ve heard from the hospital. The Fox will start the light treatment next week. It’s going to be a busy few weeks with 3 trips into Lancaster a week. I just hope it achieves something. I, meanwhile, have convinced a GP to make a referral to Orthotics about my new knee braces. I had a telephone appointment to talk to him this morning but he rang yesterday instead. That will be another hospital appointment soon. Thank goodness for the NHS. We’re certainly making a lot of use of it these days.

Now back to Italy. I think the time has come to move onto our time in Verona. I could go on about the Wine Museum or the Olive Oil Museum, both in Bardolino but it’s to Verona I go next.

We stayed at the Hotel Accademia, right in the centre of town. It was built in 1565 as a school for educating young noblemen. And what a school it must have been! From its sweeping marble staircase, high ceilings, magnificent candelabra we’d assumed it must have been a palazzo for some minor nobleman. Certainly some money must have been spent on it. We asked about the history of the building, but all the staff could do was suggest we took a copy of “Giovanni Zenatello Tenor”. It didn’t help much on the history of the building beyond the fact the hotel was bought by Giovanni’s brother, Onofrio, around 1930 & it has remained in the family ever since. I gather the Accademia was turned into an inn in 1787.

 

The candlabra in the dining room

As we stayed here, especially now I have read the book, we became aware, firstly how convenient the location of the hotel was for tourists like us, then secondly how appropriate.

Why convenient? It was within easy walking distance of Juliet’s House of Romeo & Juliet fame, & halfway between to two main hubs of Verona, the Piazza Erbe with its market & the Piazza Brà dominated by the Roman amphitheatre, famed for its operatic productions.

Why appropriate? It was Giovanni Zenatello who first had the idea of making the Arena an opera venue. Apparently in 1913, the tenor had wanted to do something to celebrate the centenary of Verdi’s birth, by opening a theatre in Verona, Zenatello's birthplace. He wanted somewhere a lot of local residents could attend at affordable prices. 

According to the biography of Zenatello, on a warm summer evening in 1913, he happened to be in a bar on the Piazza Brà. Looking across the Piazza he suddenly realised that the Arena may be the solution. He and some friends hot paced it into the amphitheatre. He then sang an aria from “Aida” to check the acoustics. They proved to be perfect. It seemed only fitting that the first opera to be put on was Verdi’s “Aida”. It was a great success, with people coming from all around the area. The Arena continues to be one of iconic venues for opera today. Out of the opera season the Arena is used for other musical events. We gather from talking to some locals that the Arena was soon to stage “Mama Mia” & had had a concert by Charles Aznavour. It must have been one of his last concerts.

 

The Arena at night. People were queuing up for a concert

The Arena by day

Incidentally Zenatello himself was regarded as one of the greatest operatic tenors of the early 20^th century. I confess I had never heard of him, but I gather he was held on a par with Caruso. His other great claim for fame was that he was the person who discovered the 14 year old soprano, Maria Callas, launching her on her operatic career.