Chorus 

The Verona Chorus was formed when operas first began to be performed in the amphitheatre, on 10th August 1913. The first conductors were Ferruccio Cusinati and Vittore Veneziani. Later the baton was held by Giulio Bertola, Corrado Mirandola, Tullio Boni, Aldo Danieli, Armando Tasso, Romano Gandolfi, Marco Faelli and Giovanni Andreoli.

Since December 2011 the Chorus has again been conducted by the Maestro Armando Tasso. Andrea Cristofolini has been the High Chorus Master since 1995. All the glorious moments of the Verona amphitheatre unfailingly coincide with opera performances which involve choral music to a great extent. The imposing use of large scale vocalisation allows for the production of grandiose performances, highly suitable for the very large scenic setting of the Arena. Not by chance, the most wonderful Arena melodramas are those with greater use of choral music, like Aida, La Gioconda, Nabucco. The “Va Pensiero” from Nabucco creates emotional ovations in the public which never tires of demanding repeats.

The great historic productions of which the Chorus is the essential protagonist are: Aida, Nabucco, The Force of Destiny (La Forza del destino), Othello, The Troubadour (Il Trovatore), Carmen, Turandot, La Gioconda, Norma, Mephistopheles (Mefistofele), Faust, Samson and Delilah, Boris Godunov. Apart from its fundamental contribution to opera, the Chorus has performed memorable concerts at the Arena: Verdi’s Requiem Mass, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, The Damnation of Faust by Berlioz, The Resurrection of Christ by Perosi. The Chorus also accompanies the Orchestra of the Arena in the winter opera and symphony season at the Philharmonic Theatre and in other locations of the City and of the Region.

The Chorus of the Verona Arena has also presented important performances abroad: at the Deutschlandhalle in Berlin in the years 1977-1980, at the Stadthalle of Vienna in 1980, 1982, and 1984, at Luxor in Egypt, in the Aida location in 1987, in Tokyo in 1989 and 1991, in Beijing in 2000, as well as in Munich, Frankfurt, Zurich, Dortmund, Hamburg and Stuttgart.

In October it was protagonist of a grandiose Turandot by Puccini, directed by Franco Zeffirelli at the Royal Opera House of Muscat, capital of the sultanate of Oman.