La Traviata, Teatro Guiseppe Verdi, Busseto (near Parma), October 9

One of the highlights of early Fall in Emilia-Romagna, in addition to fresh porcini, zucca and chestnuts, is the Verdi festival of Parma.  The Parma/Modena area has been home to many opera legends, e.g.: Pavarotti, Tebaldi, Toscanini and Verdi.  The annual Verdi festival celebrates this heritage with performances of several Verdi operas in various venues around Parma.  Most performances are sold out months in advance to opera lovers from all over Europe and opera tour companies.  Wes was checking out availability for several months before our arrival but the pickings were slim and expensive.

But checking last week we found availability of reasonably priced tickets to a performance of La
Traviata.  The Teatro Giuseppe Verdi opera house, located in the small town of Busseto, just to the north of Parma, was unknown to us.  But checking train schedules we found it was easy to reach by train from Bologna (about 1.5 hours) as long as we could locate a place to spend the night.  After a bit of research we learned that Busseto was actually where Verdi lived for much of his career and we soon saw for our selves just how great a legend he was for this community.

Teatro Giuseppi Verdi

The opera house has only 300 seats and is located in a former fortress from the 13th century.  At one point in the past, a moat surrounded the palace.  The opera house opened about the time of Verdi’s death in 1868 after the building was acquired by the town.

You don’t realize just how small a 300-seat theater is until you are inside.  It is so precious, we felt as though we were inside a jewel box.  You can practically reach out and touch the people in the gallery on the opposite side.  The orchestra (from Bologna) took up nearly 20% of the main floor; the stage another 30%.  So actual orchestra level seats comprise only 50% of the main floor area.  You can imagine how alive the sound was.  The acoustics were perfect.  The balance was perfect.  In spite of the large orchestra the singers could be heard clearly throughout the performance.  The orchestra never seemed to be overpowering.

Main floor of theater with orchestra.

Our seats were in the top gallery at the center/rear.  It was all bench seating up in the gallery.  But the theater wisely limited the number of seats actually sold in the gallery to about 50% of capacity so there was plenty of room to move around and stand up (we sat on the last row of benches).

View from our seats in the top gallery.

A special treat was learning that the hotel we stayed in, directly next door to the opera house, is run by the sons of the famous tenor Carlo Bergonzi.  When we checked out, we met one of the sons at the front desk.

Hotel I Due Foscari, Busseto