Soprano Gasdia reboots troubled Verona Arena opera festival

VERONA, Italy (AP) — The colossal Roman-era Verona Arena amphitheater remains an imposing presence in the northern Italian city's main piazza, but its place in the opera world has waned in recent years.

The popular Verona Arena summer festival has lost both audience and prestige and nearly closed two seasons ago under a mountain of debt. Now the artists and public who have sustained it are putting their hopes for a relaunch in the hands of a former opera singer who this year became the first to run an Italian lyric theater.

Soprano Cecilia Gasdia, a 57-year-old Verona native who has appeared on the Arena stage as an extra, a chorus member and a star, inherited a troubled festival that has struggled for years.