Your first opera concert in Verona

What happens, in order

First you walk in and check in, completing a membership card with your name and country of residence. A glass of prosecco is handed over, seats are assigned there and then, and the 60-minute concert starts with the tenor, the mezzo-soprano and the pianist. Afterwards the performers meet guests in the atrium, and you can photograph them. The calendar gives the start time for your date and the confirmation gives the meeting point; nothing else is needed beforehand.

Words worth knowing

An aria is a song for one voice in an opera. A duet is a piece for two, so with a tenor and a mezzo-soprano on stage you may hear them together. A romanza is a gentler song, such as Una furtiva lagrima. A tenor is the highest standard adult male voice, and a mezzo-soprano is the female voice between soprano and contralto. An intermezzo is an instrumental piece between scenes, and verismo is the late 19th-century school of realistic Italian opera to which Cavalleria rusticana belongs. That is nearly all the vocabulary a concert like this needs, and the arias guide on this site explains the four pieces named for the programme.

Read next: The arias in a Verona opera concert

Preparing in five minutes

You do not need to study. Read the one-line story of each piece: a duke sings that women are fickle, a village man hopes a fake potion has worked, a woman declares love a rebellious bird, an orchestra plays while a square empties. Then listen to each piece once on your phone before you go, so the tunes are familiar when you hear them live. Several are tunes you may already know without knowing their names. The programme can change between dates, so do not treat the four titles as a script.

Sitting and listening

Seats are assigned, so you cannot pick, but the hall is small and the rows face a curved apse where the performers stand. Guests describe the venue as intimate and the setting as small. A few mention that the chairs could be more comfortable, so settle in at the start. Opera singers project without amplification, and the room is small, so you will hear the voices at full strength, which can be louder than you expect. Verdi, Donizetti, Bizet and Mascagni wrote for large theatres, so hearing their tunes with only a piano shows how strong the melodies are.

Phones and photographs

Held up in the air, a phone blocks the view of the people behind you, so leave yours in a pocket until the concert is over. The performers meet guests in the atrium afterwards, and that is when to photograph them. The ticket does not say whether recording is allowed during the music, so do not film unless a notice says you may. The palace's atrium, with its marble and chandelier, also photographs well before you sit down, and the ticket includes access to the interiors.

Who this isn't for

A short concert is not for someone who wants to follow a complete plot, read subtitles or watch scenery change. If that is you, choose a staged opera at the Teatro Filarmonico in season, because the operas behind these pieces run far longer than an hour. The ticket states no age limit, so check the booking page before you bring young children. For everyone else, it is a gentle first hour of opera in a room built for meetings.

Read next: Verona opera concert: how to book