A night at the opera

If the thought of watching 'Rigoletto' under the stars in Verona makes you sing, book now for this year's opera festival, says Frances Cairncross

How does one set about planning a European weekend to celebrate a daughter's 24th birthday? Scour the sites of cut-price airlines. Discover, unexpectedly, that it costs less to get to Italy than to the south of France. Spot a flight with Ryanair to Verona (well, Brescia, really) that will allow the two of us to jump up from our respective London desks at 4.30pm and finish the evening with primi piatti in a café up the road from the hotel. Bingo! A weekend of pleasure planned.

But then everyone starts to ask: are you taking her to the opera? Opera in a Roman amphitheatre sounds a bit naff – like a sort of musical son et lumière – but back on the internet, the Fondazione Arena di Verona makes it impressively simple to reserve a couple of seats for Rigoletto on Saturday night. Clutching one piece of paper with our Ryanair number and one with our Fondazione number, we make for Stansted.

Waking the next morning in the nice little Hotel Italia, we fill up on mozzarella and tomatoes for breakfast and head off to collect our tickets. Through the narrow streets, dragging ourselves away from shop windows full of delectable underwear, we reach Piazza Bra. Clearly, Verona is a town for gentlewomen, not just gentlemen. Rearing above us are the pink marble walls of the Arena.

We join the queue for the box- office. A stubble-chinned spiv wants to sell us tickets. No thanks, we say, we have our internet booking. But this is Italy: he looks at us sternly and tells us we are in the wrong queue. Directed by the tout, we walk a hundred yards and find the right office. Two clicks of a mouse, a wave of my credit card, and we have our tickets.

In the evening, we arrive late, having spent too long over our chicken and polenta. But this is amphitheatre opera, so why hurry? We climb up and up and emerge into the vast arena, one of the best-preserved Roman amphitheatres, to find its 1st century AD stone stepspacked. We teeter along the rows and eventually squeeze into a space right at the top, beside a family from Ferrara. Almost immediately, the lights dim. The sunset glows over the distant mountains round Lake Garda. The audience, perhaps 15,000 people, light up candles. The whole immense ellipse is full of flickering light. Only in the grand red velvet seats at the front is there a patch of darkness.

Into this magical atmosphere strides the Duke, and as soon as he opens his mouth, it is clear that there will be nothing naff about this performance. We are in for an unexpectedly marvellous evening. He sings like an angel, getting better as the evening wears on, as do Gilda and Rigoletto. And the staging is superb: courtiers dance across the rows of stone steps climbing up behind the stage, braziers flare in the darkness, and clouds roll across the back in the storm scene.

But it's the audience we really love. During the interval, we crane our necks to see the frocks and rocks in the stalls. "A seat there costs €240," say our neighbours in awe. "Verona is a very rich city." Up here, though, we are having more fun. It is more Wembley than Glyndebourne. Each lovely aria produces bellows of "Bravi! Bravissimi!" as people jump to their feet, wave, clap and cheer. At the first few bars of "La donna e mobile" everyone starts to hum quietly, then they fall silent while the Duke's golden notes soar up towards the stars. As he finishes, the yells of "Bis! Bis!" persuade him to sing it again.

When we sleepily clamber down the steps well after midnight, having clapped the cast through a dozen curtain calls, we reflect on the sensation of sitting where audiences have sat for two millennia – and of watching something a great deal more agreeable than fighting gladiators.

For information on the 2003 Verona opera festival, starting 21 June, call 00 39 045 800 5151 (www.arena.it)