With the support from Accessibility Partner Müller, Fondazione Arena presents the 2026 edition of Arena per Tutti—a project dedicated to making the Arena di Verona Opera Festival more accessible than ever before.
The program includes multisensory tours to discover the backstage, accessible trailers and digital opera booklets, Easy-to-Read opera guides, and 2,600 seats reserved for people with sensory and intellectual disabilities. All content is available in threelanguages: Italian, English, and German.
The Festival’s accessibility project is coordinated by Professor Elena Di Giovanni, with the support of Professor Francesca Raffi from the University of Macerata.
Arena for All Dates 2026
26 evenings of opera with La Traviata, Nabucco, Aida and Turandot, from June to September, for the "Arena for All" project. 26 evenings that makes the Arena di Verona accessibile to all, during which everyone will be able to follow the opera with ad hoc supports and paths including audio description for the blind and specific subtitles for the deaf.
All the 26 evenings, including the 19 that offer sensory itineraries, are now available to book.
In 2023, the Arena for All initiative was launched for a more accessible Festival. For people with disabilities, 1,500 more places were made available than in previous editions.
The operas Aida, La Traviata, Rigoletto and Nabucco were made fully accessible with dedicated free tools:
inclusive trailers, in Italian and English, with subtitles, voice, Italian and international sign language translation, audio description of images;
audio introductions and audio descriptions for blind and visually impaired persons;
subtitles for deaf and hard of hearing people;
inclusive, digital programmes, in Italian and English, with simplified texts, editable and enlargeable fonts, voice, audio description of images, and texts translated into Italian and international sign language;
info sheets for the operas, in Easy To Read language (promoted by “Inclusion Europe”, the European Association for people with cognitive disabilities), in Italian and English;
Experiential paths before the operas
The numbers of the initiative
In total there were 766 participants, including spectators (466) who took advantage of the sensory and cognitive aids, and participants in the multi-sensory pathways (300), who were lucky enough to enjoy the Arena backstage experience. The operation expanded the Arena's audience: for 63.7 percent of visitors it was their first time in the Arena.
The age range most involved was the 45-54 age group (27.2% of the total). The region of origin of most visitors was Veneto, followed by Lombardy, Emilia Romagna and Marche. The most frequently used free tools were accessible trailers, inclusive and digital programmes, and easy-to-read cards. Read the detailed report here.
The project Arena per Tutti (Arena for All), carried out by Fondazione Arena di Verona and Müller Italia, has grown by 44% in its second edition in 2024 compared to the first 2023 edition, becoming the most important accessibility project in Europe.
Over the 2024 summer, 3,521 people with disabilities were able to experience the magic of the Opera. 1,002 of these enjoyed the experience through multisensory technologies and itineraries in 25 accessible evenings of live entertainment, from June to September. All participants had the opportunity to follow the opera with ad hoc supports and itineraries, including audio description for blind and visually impaired people, as well as specific subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing. Three different languages for these supports were available: Italian, English and German.
The new practices at the Arena di Verona have allowed the performance of opera singing in Italy, a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Site, to be accessible to all. As many as 1,002 people took advantage of the supports and technologies during the shows, while 354 participated in the multisensory pre-operation itineraries, with an increase of 39% compared to 2023. Twelve events registered sold-out figures and saw the participation of numerous associations, including the Italian Union of the Blind and Partially Sighted with national chairman Mario Barbuto, and media attention. La7, Rai and Corriere della Sera, in addition to local and regional newspapers, spoke of the Arena project as the most important in Europe, in terms of numbers of spectators involved.
The numbers of the initiative
A viral initiative that reached over 14 million users on the social channels of Fondazione Arena, Müller and the influencers involved: Elisabetta Rossi, Daniele Cassioli, Giovanni and Andrea Cerullo, Anna Vernillo, and Marco Andriano. The website www.arenapertutti.it recorded 14,000 interactions and about 2,400 individual users who searched for information, with a great increase in foreign users, thanks to the translated content. 4,600 electronic libretti were consulted (30% in English), and 5,200 interactions for the Easy-To-Read fact sheets (half of which in English and German).
Arena per tutti involved spectators from 16 different regions of Italy and, for the first time, also from Germany, Austria, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, of whom 43% had never been to the Arena before, thus approaching the world of opera for their first time. Over 91% of those who used the tools enthusiastically reported that they appreciated the effectiveness and immersiveness of their evening at the opera. Thanks also to social and digital communication, the average age of 53% of the public was below the age of 55.
