As Italian culture restarts, opera comes to Rome's Circus Maximus chariot-racing arena

Two thousand years after it echoed to the thunder of horses’ hooves, Rome’s ancient chariot-racing arena is to host a summer season of post-lockdown opera.

A huge stage and seating for 1,000 spectators is being built in the dusty bowl of the Circus Maximus, the chariot-racing track that is overlooked by the ruins of imperial palaces on the Palatine Hill.

Summer opera is normally held in the semi-ruined Baths of Carcalla, a vast bathing and gymnasium complex that was built during the Roman Empire, but it is not big enough to accommodate stringent social distancing measures.

Nor does it have enough separate entrances and exits, whereas the Circus Maximus will have four.

Performances of Rigoletto, The Barber of Seville and The Merry Widow will be held in the Circus Maximus, immortalised by the Hollywood blockbuster Ben Hur.

The Teatro dell’Opera di Roma is the first European opera house to resume productions since lockdown began to ease.

Ballerinas will not have to wear masks but nor will they be allowed to touch or lift each other - unless they are a couple both off-stage as well as on-stage, in which case the risk of infection is deemed to be minimal.

After Italy’s three-month lockdown, during which television production, filming, theatre, opera and ballet ground to a halt, the season will start on July 16 with Verdi’s Rigoletto.

It will be followed by The Barber of Seville, with the opening night on July 22 reserved for doctors and nurses who battled Covid-19 at the height of the emergency, trying to save lives.

“It’s going to be a rather unusual season,” said Virginia Raggi, the mayor of Rome, speaking in a huge, fifth-floor workshop overlooking the Circus Maximus in which carpenters, painters and other technicians produce sets and backdrops for the opera house.

“We have chosen a historic venue, one which has enough space to allow us to respect all the social distancing norms so that both performers and spectators will remain safe. This will be a symbol of Rome as life gets underway again.”

Carlo Fuortes, the head of the Rome Opera House, said: “The Circus Maximus is emblematic of Rome. It’s one of the greatest performance venues ever created by mankind.”

More than 34,500 people have died from Covid-19 in Italy since the virus was detected in late February, although it is now thought that it was circulating in the country as early as December.

The peak of the pandemic was “the worst days of our lives,” the health minister said on Monday. “All of us shiver when we think of those times,” said Roberto Speranza.

Amid warnings that infections could surge again as Italians flock to the beach and gather in piazzas for late-night drinking and socialising, he warned that there was no room for complacency.

“We’re still fighting this battle, the match is not over yet, and woe betide those who think it has been won.”