Soprano Gasdia reboots troubled Verona Arena opera festival

Vbe happy if all the great singers want to return to sing at the Arena of Verona, as many did in the past, when this theater was a destination for many,” she said. “It was considered a bit like La Scala, the summer-time La Scala. That would be the most beautiful thing for me, if that was to be the case again.”

There is no question that the Arena, which has hosted such opera stars as Maria Callas and Luciano Pavarotti, had fallen from its former glory. The average attendance last season was just over 50 percent capacity, down from twothirds capacity just seven years earlier in 2010, according to the Italian society of authors and publishers that keeps entertainment statistics.

The Verona summer festival still remains popular with foreign tourists, who are responsible for about half of its ticket sales. But they often book packages not based on who is singing but on the ancient backdrop, the popular Italian repertoire including mainstays “Aida” and “Nabucco,” and the impressive, imposing scenery that is lifted in and out of the Arena by crane in the wee hours of the morning.

Israeli conductor Daniel Oren has been conducting at the Arena since 1984, a period he said when tickets were impossible to find.

“The Arena is very sad when it is partly empty. Even if there are 9,000 people, it’s like a funeral for us artists. And for the business, it is also a funeral,” he said. Across

1 Prod

5 Bitter

10 Pocket

13 Jewish scripture 15 Polish monetary unit

16 Flying saucer 17 Expression 18 Otherwise

19 0.0254 mm

20 Cebu island 23 Marketplace 24 Curative mineral spring

27 Imp

28 Highest points

30 Baby bear

31 Bark

33 Sonny

34 Evils

36 South American animal

38 You

40 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

41 Type of car

43 Type of tea

45 New York (abbr.) 46 Breaks

48 Resound

49 Hotel

50 Belgian city 54 Snacked

55 Cotton plug

58 Federal Bureau of Investigation

59 Canoe propeller 60 Legal instrument 61 Libel

64 Epoch

65 See

67 City in Nebraska 71 Ewe’s mate

72 Insane

74 Former U.S. president 75 Pressure unit

76 Soft

77 Teepee Down

1 Short-term memory 2 Also

3 Artist’s creation 4 Santander barangay 5 Grand Canyon state

6 Gadfly

7 Candy brand 8 Possessive pronoun 9 Tinct

10 Shrub

11 On fire

12 Young horses

14 Leaky

21 Brew

22 Football league 23 Region in the air 24 Plant shoot

25 Not having stiffness 26 Qualified

28 An expression

29 Short for Pamela 32 ‘Plasma’ variant 35 What an actor reads

37 Turkish lira (abbr.) 38 Rumormonger

39 Lawn tool

41 Finland denizen 42 Fashionable

44 See ya!

47 Spanish “one” 51 Disconnected 52 Basketball association 53 Singer Paul

55 Idiot

56 Tapestry

57 Florida City

61 God

62 Engrave

63 Shine

65 McDonald’s “Big

__”

66 Flightless bird

68 Wood chopper

69 Term of affection 70 Picnic visitor 73 Kentucky (abbr.)