Romeo and Juliet in the Arena

When is Romeo and Juliet at the Arena in 2027?

Four nights: 18 June, 26 June, 15 July and 20 August 2027.

The dates are spread across the season, so one of them fits almost any summer trip. The official production page gives a running time of about 2 hours 50 minutes with two intervals. With a 21:30 start on 18 June, that brings you out of the gates around 00:20. Plan on midnight or later every night.

The June dates have the latest light. Sunset in Verona is around 21:00 in late June, so the first act starts in blue dusk, the hour when the audience lights the small candles that are an Arena tradition.

What do we know about the production?

It is new and made in house: Fondazione Arena orchestra, dancers and technicians, with stage design directed by Michele Olcese.

The Arena credits the music to Sergei Prokofiev and the libretto to Prokofiev, Sergei Radlov, Adrian Piotrovsky and Leonid Lavrovsky, the team behind the original Soviet ballet. Michele Olcese is named as director of stage design. The choreographer, the conductor and the dancers in the title roles have not been announced. The cast boxes on every date read "cast coming soon".

The Fondazione has its own corps de ballet, which dances in the operas every summer (the triumphal scene of Aida needs it) and stages full ballets at the Teatro Filarmonico in winter. Romeo and Juliet puts that company at the centre of the Arena stage. Expect a big, readable production: anything subtle disappears at this distance.

Why is it the first ballet in the Arena since 1993?

Full-length ballet left the festival after 1993, and the Fondazione made its return the headline of the 2027 season.

The Fondazione's own line is that complete ballet performances have been missing from the amphitheatre since 1993. Superintendent Cecilia Gasdia called 2027 "un cartellone particolare, che segna anche il ritorno del balletto in Arena" (a special programme, which also marks the return of ballet to the Arena), and Stefano Trespidi promised "una grande festa per tutto il mondo della danza" (a great celebration for the whole dance world), as reported by Giornale della Danza.

One footnote. On 26 August 2019 Sergei Polunin danced the world premiere of Johan Kobborg's Romeo and Juliet in the Arena, a guest production rather than a festival one. The Fondazione's "since 1993" refers to its own festival programme. Between those years, dance in the Arena meant one-night galas, led lately by Roberto Bolle, who is back on 8 and 21 July 2027.

Why does Romeo and Juliet matter in Verona?

Because the story is set here, and the city has built a whole visitor trail on it.

Shakespeare placed the Montagues and Capulets in Verona, and the city answered with Juliet's House on Via Cappello, the balcony, and Juliet's Tomb at the old Franciscan convent. Seeing the ballet a few hundred metres from that balcony is the obvious draw, and the reason we expect these four nights to sell faster than an average Traviata.

Prokofiev wrote the score in the 1930s. The ballet premiered in Brno in 1938 and found its classic form at the Kirov in Leningrad in 1940, with Leonid Lavrovsky's choreography and Galina Ulanova as Juliet. The Dance of the Knights from the Capulets' ball is the tune most people know without knowing they know it.

Make a day of it: the small-group walk with the cable car covers the old town and offers Juliet's House as an option, from $77.

Which seats are best for ballet in the Arena?

A central raised sector: the Tribune, or the 1st Sector Verdi facing the stage. Dance needs height and a straight-on view more than closeness.

Opera is about sound, and the stalls near the stage win. Ballet is about patterns: the lines of the corps, the shape of the lifts, the full width of the floor. From the front stalls you look up at the stage edge and lose the feet. From a raised central sector you see the whole picture, still close enough to read faces with a small pair of binoculars.

Our order of preference: Sector Tribune (EUR 125 on ballet nights), 1st Sector Verdi (EUR 115), then the Platinum and Gold stalls if money is no object. The 4th to 6th sector steps work for the spectacle and the price, from EUR 30, but they sit far to the sides and high up. They are numbered stone seats with no back: bring or rent a cushion. Our seating guide has the gates and the view from every sector.

Are there discounts for the ballet?

No early-booking price, but the U30 stalls deal at EUR 30 and the family rate both apply on ballet nights, except the U30 deal on Saturday 26 June.

The rate table puts Romeo and Juliet in the gala and ballet band, which never gets the early-booking discount and is not sold as an Open Ticket. Two offers still apply. Under-30s can take a limited 2nd Sector Stalls seat at EUR 30, up to four per order, but not on Saturdays, which rules out 26 June. Families can use the Tribune Family rate: EUR 2.50 for each child aged 0 to 14, with one adult at EUR 68, up to six tickets.

A ballet about teenagers is a fair first night out for a child. Under-4s are admitted only in the Family Tribune, and with a finish near midnight, ten is a more realistic minimum age. Buy only on shop.arena.it or the Arena's other official channels.

The old town in a small group, the cable car to San Pietro hill, and Juliet's House as an option.

★ 4.8 · 2.5 to 3 hours · from $77

Check dates → Tour details

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