Why Your Next Trip to Italy Should be Operatic

A carpet of butterflies, flickering in a colorful, blended hum. 

That’s what it looks and sounds like on a late summer’s evening in Verona as the audience at the Arena Opera Festival stirs the warm, perfumed air with paper fans. Those without one make do with leaflets or wide-brimmed hats — flip-flap, flip-flap — because anything goes in this ancient space. Verona’s majestic Roman amphitheatre has seen gladiatorial combat, jousting and bullfights