Matino

Verona's International Opera Festival, one of the Italian cultural must-sees, takes place in the Arena, an ancient Roman amphitheatre. Some 50 large-scale performances of works by Puccini, Mozart, Verdi and others are lit by candles distributed to the audience.

The programme in 2010 included Verdi's Aida, Puccini's Turandot and Madama Butterfly, Georges Bizet's Carmen and Il Trovatore by Giuseppe Verdi.

Up to 22,000 spectators at a time are able to delight both in the amazing historical setting and the fantastic acoustics of the ancient monument, as well as in the world-class performers the festival attracts.

The first festival was organised in 1913, when a group of friends decided that the ancient arena would be a spectacular venue for Aida. It was attended by thousands of opera fans, critics, journalists and musicians from all over the world, and among the spectators were the writers Franz Kafka and Maxim Gorky, as well as Puccini. Billed as one of the greatest music events of the early-20th century, it set a precedent which the organisers have happily managed to live up to over the years.

It is advisable to book tickets well in advance because they sell out quickly. You can make your bookings online and there are sales outlets across Europe - please visit the Arena di Verona website for details.

Performances really come alive in this fantastic venue, even if wild cats can be seen, on occasion, walking across the stage area during performances!

Related Information

Website: Arena di Verona Website

Carnevale di Venezia events
The official Carnival site is part of the Municipality of Venice website - click on "English", then "Program". Many event organisers also gradually add their events throughout the year to the private Carnival of Venice website, so it's worth checking both.

Venice Carnival in history
The word carnival comes from the Latin for "Farewell, meat!". As Lent (which begins on Ash Wednesday) obliged people to fast, during the period up to Ash Wednesday all meat, butter and eggs had to be used up. This religious formality became the excuse for a party that echoed pagan festivities. In late Rome Saturnalia and Lupercalia were moments when licentiousness and wantonry were celebrated - a deliberate upturning of the usual social order. Christianity licensed a comparable period of celebration from Twelfth Night until the midnight of Shrove Tuesday. Popes Clement IX and XI and Benedict XIII were among those who tried hardest to bring Carnival back within proper religious limits, but they didn't have much influence over Venice.
The history of the Venice Carnival tradition began after 1162. The Republic defeated Ulrico, Patriarch of Aquileia in that year, and began a tradition of slaughtering a bull and 12 pigs in the Piazza San Marco around Shrove Tuesday to commemorate the victory. This celebration gradually grew and 1268 dates the first document mentioning the use of masks.

History of Venice Carnival – the 18th Century
The eighteenth century was the heyday of Carnival. Venice's decline in power was accompanied by a conspicuous consumption of pleasure. Rich young nobles doing the European "Grand Tour" made sure these pleasures were theirs as well. The paintings of Francesco Guardi and the diaries of Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) are the best-known symbols of the age - the languid spirit of carnival an ever-present implication.

History of Venice Carnival – Retirement and revival
Carnival's significance declined gradually through to the 1930s, when Mussolini banned it. In 1979, a group of Venetians and lovers of Venice decided to revive the tradition. Within a few years, the image of the masked reveller had become a worldwide icon of Venice in winter.

Venice Carnival masks
Masks made the Venetian Carnival unique. If you cannot identify the wearer of the mask, you do not know his social status. In this way, Venice temporarily overturned her social order. Some of the masks depicted Commedia dell'Arte characters. Others were more sinister. The white-beaked mask so famous from photographs is that of the plague-doctor; the beak echoes a doctor's long breathing apparatus that held a sponge doused in vinegar, thought to hold the plague at bay. The Doges were frequently exercised by the dangers masks allowed, and passed laws limiting their use to within the carnival period; if you wore a mask at any other time of year, penalties were severe.
Masks are a big cottage industry in today's Venice, and sold all year round. If you are looking for a mask for carnival, one of the better mask shops is Carta Alta - their website not only gives you a catalogue of masks for sale, but flash movies showing how the masks are made.

Michael Fassbender with his Venice film festival award for best actor. He spends much of his time in Shame engaged in increasingly unhappy acts of sex in stark hotel rooms. Photograph: Danny Martindale/WireImage
Actor Michael Fassbender took a giant leap towards superstardom by winning the best actor prize at the Venice film festival for his controversial role as a man addicted to sex.

Fassbender, who was born in Germany and raised in Ireland, but who now lives in east London, won the award for his performance as Brandon in Steve McQueen's drama Shame, in which he plays a successful New York executive tortured by his obsession with sexual images and brief sexual encounters.

He spends much of the film naked, engaged in increasingly unhappy acts of sex in stark hotel rooms. He also struggles to maintain a relationship with his visiting sister, played by Carey Mulligan.

Shame is the second time Fassbender has collaborated with director McQueen, the first being the controversial but award-winning Hunger, in which he played Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands. Accepting the award, the actor hailed McQueen as "his hero". Since Hunger won the prize for best debut (Camera d'Or) at Cannes in 2008, he has starred in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, the blockbuster X-Men: First Class, is currently starring in new UK release Jane Eyre, and had two lead roles at Venice, playing Carl Jung in David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Methodas well as Brandon in Shame.

Fassbender, 34, made a last-minute schedule change to accept the award, known as the Volpi Cup, switching a flight bound for the Toronto film festival and arriving in the Sala Grande on the Venice Lido just 15 minutes before hearing his name called out as the winner.

Shame was widely tipped to win the top prize of the Golden Lion, but lost to the Russian film Faust, by the revered auteur Alexsandr Sokurov. Fassbender's win still represented a highly successful festival for British cinema – he was joined on the winner's stage by cinematographer Robbie Ryan, rewarded with the technical prize for his atmospheric work on Andrea Arnold's daring adaptation of Wuthering Heights.

"It's nice to take a chance on work you think is relevant and hope other people find it relevant," he said. "Venice is a festival with a wonderful tradition and it is humbling to win when the competition is from so many other amazing talents."

Fassbender made particular reference to the work of Gary Oldman, who played George Smiley in the much-admired Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

"He blows my mind," said Fassbender, "and I've been following him since I was 14 years old. This is incredible."

Fassbender, who is currently working on films with Ridley Scott and Jim Jarmusch, continues a proud tradition of British and Irish performers to win acting prizes in Venice, most recently Colin Firth, whose win for Tom Ford's A Single Man launched him on the way to Oscar glory in The King's Speech. Helen Mirren, Imelda Staunton, Jim Broadbent and Liam Neeson have all won in recent times.

Awarding the Golden Lion to Faust, jury president Darren Aronofsky said: "The jurors are seven people from different corners of the world but we were united in our choice and admiration for this winner. Some films make you dream, or laugh, or cry, and some, like this one, change your life the moment you see them for the first time."

Although never a winner of any major awards, 60-year-old, Siberian-born Sokurov has been long admired for films such as Moloch, Mother and Son and the extraordinary Russian Ark, which consists of a single travelling shot through St Petersburg's Hermitage Museum, lasting 96 minutes. Faust's win was widely considered a surprise, but will also be seen as a return to the festival's artistic roots after the hotly disputed win for Sofia Coppola's Somewhere last year, a prize dished out by her ex-boyfriend Quentin Tarantino.

After this year's strong competition, Venice is widely considered to have regained its stature as one of the world's major film events.Resisting Hollywood glamour, the festival also handed out awards to Hong Kong actress Deanie Yip for her charming performance as a dying family maid in A Simple Life. A popular win was the Jury Prize, which went to Italian director Emmanuele Crialese for Terrafirma, a film about African immigrants washed up on the remote Italian holiday island of Linosa. The screenplay prize went to Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos's Alps, while best director could literally be considered a shock – it went to China's Shanjun Cai, whose People Mountain, People Sea officially played as the competition's surprise film.

THE WINNERS

Golden Lion for best film

Faust by Aleksander Sokurov (Russia)

Silver Lion for best director

Shangjun Cai for People Mountain People Sea (China)

Special jury prize

Terraferma by Emanuele Crialese (Italy)

Best first feature

Là-Bas by Guido Lombardi (Italy)

Best actress

Deanie Yip for A Simple Life (Hong Kong)

Best actor

Michael Fassbender for Shame

(Britain)

Emerging performer

Shota Sometani and Fumi Nikaido for Himizu (Japan)

Best screenplay

Alpis (Alps) by Yorgos Lanthimos (Greece)

Best cinematography

Robbie Ryan for Wuthering Heights, directed by Andrea Arnold (Britain)