Note that the place you pick up tickets already purchased is DIFFERENT (but nearby) the 'ticket office' where people line up to buy their tickets. We bought our tickets on-line and picket them up the day of the performance with no problems at all. Some buy the little flashlight 'candles' in the Arena shop instead, but when we were there the real candles were free. Then you & the other daughter can rent the cushions and pick up the candles that will be lit in twilight as the performance is about to begin. I forgot you will be 4, so I advise your husband and one daughter RUN for the seats, as it is tough for one person to hold 4 seats alone as people push & shove for position. It should be great fun! A spectacle even separate & apart form the opera was a highlight of our trip. It is festive & fun.But I recommend you wear pants rather than a skirt/dress if you will be clambering up & down the stone seating! With the cushions, it is perfectly comfortable, or at least we found it too be so. Many people picnic, bringing their own food. Once this is accomplished, squatters rights prevail & you settle in and enjoy! It will be like a baseball game as you wait for the opera to begin, with vendors selling food, drinks, wine, programs, rain ponchos if the forecast is dicey, etc.

The only thing to look out for with unreserved seating is that you need to line up early at the entrance and RUN when it opens to claim the best seats you can grab.Assuming there are at least 2 of you, the fastest should run to claim good seats while the second one rents cushions and grabs candles just inside the archway. We were there for Rigoletto), but we had the extra fun of seeing the stage so well, and the singers took their bows right in front of us.

Not only was the sound wonderful (we worried it would be terribly unbalanced, but it was not. We got unreserved tickets when we went, and got seats in the section across from the conductor.I think it was section B.

Old tosca opera posters