One of the greatest opera composers of the Romantic period, Giuseppe Verdi is known for his dramatic and emotionally tumultuous works – Rigoletto, telling the story of the tortured court jester and his fallen daughter; Otello, depicting the doomed romance between the hero and his love Desdemona... less exciting is the fact that Verdi would in English have been known as John Green - takes the edge off, doesn't it.
With heavyweight tragedies like Aida and La Traviata on the bill, we'll be honest: it’s not necessarily going to be a barrel of laughs. (And if you think you’re going to get many smiles out of Puccini’s La Boheme, also showing, well you’d be wrong.) But it’s going to be stunning. What better place to have a good cry than at the Arena de Veroni, where the festival will run until September.
See – you learn something new every day at Picture Yourself There. Don’t forget your hankies, and get the NavPix here…


