The Arena Opera Festival has been opened in 1913 with Giuseppe Verdi's masterpiece "Aida", in order to celebrate the centennial his birth.

To attend this festival came to Verona people from all the world.

During the years the festival was suspended during the two world wars for ten years. It was the very Arena to see the rise of the lyric opera star soprano Maria Callas, who made her debut in Amilcare Ponchielli's Gioconda.
In Arena were played many concerts (Christ's Resurrection by Perosi,
Messa da Requiem and Te Deum by Verdi, Stabat Mater by Rossini) and ballets (Coppelia by Leo Delibes, the lake of Swans and the Beautiful Asleep by Piotr Ilič Čaikovskij).
In 1962 a fire to the scenes of "A masked ball" forced to cancel last four performances of the season. The Lyric Season of 2007, announced already long ago, foresees three works of Verdi (Aida, Nabucco and Traviata) Puccini's Bohème and Rossini's Barber of Seville.
Many are the famous operas never performed at Arena, such as: Adriana Lecouvreur by Francesco Cilea, Puccini's tryptich, Wally by Alfredo Catalani, and Verdi's Falstaff.
The most represented work is obviously Aida, which from 2005 will be performed every year, although it's on the billboard regularly in all seasons from 1992; Aida is also the first represented lyric opera in Arena. The most represented piece is the little famous Prodigal Son by Ponchielli, with 17 repeat performances in 1919. The least performed is Martha di Flotow, only two representations in 1929 season.