Three Tenors in Rome: how to book

What the ticket is

This is a one-concert admission to an evening of tenor arias and songs of Naples, held in St Paul's Within the Walls at Via Nazionale 16a. The organiser is Opera e Lirica, and the booking page gives the length as 1.5 hours. Choose your date in the calendar; the confirmation you receive carries the start time. No meal or drink comes with it, so dinner, a drink or a guided look at the church would be separate plans. The concert is listed as wheelchair accessible, and pets are not allowed. Because the programme may vary between dates, the date you choose decides which evening you attend.

Who the three tenors are, and are not

The name points to the Three Tenors of 1990, Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras, who first sang together in Rome on 7 July 1990. This concert is not by them. The organiser describes it as inspired by those shows and presents its own tenors, so you are booking a tribute-style evening of the same kind of repertoire with different voices. That is worth knowing before you buy. A ticket for a concert of this kind makes a smaller promise than the name suggests, and a more realistic one.

Read next: The 1990 Three Tenors concert in Rome

What you will hear

Expect opera arias for tenor and songs from Naples. The organiser sets the programme and may change it, so the pieces named here are a guide to the repertoire and not a promise for your date. Tenor concerts lean on Puccini's Tosca and Turandot, Verdi's Rigoletto and Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, then turn to songs such as Funiculì, Funiculà and 'O sole mio, which audiences often know by heart. Each of these has a story and a reason it became famous. The ticket page outlines the programme for your date, so it is worth reading it once before you go and then listening for the pieces you recognise. Read the programme as a map of the evening and not as a contract, and enjoy whichever pieces arrive.

Read next: Nessun dorma and other tenor arias

The church as a concert room

St Paul's Within the Walls is a Gothic Revival church of red brick and white travertine, designed by the English architect George Edmund Street for Rome's Episcopal congregation. Its apse and chancel carry mosaics designed by Edward Burne-Jones, and its nave has three aisles under a decorated ceiling. For a listener this means a large, richly finished room that is part of the evening rather than a neutral hall, and a setting worth arriving a little early to see. The church guide on this site explains the building, its mosaics and how the street around it came to exist.

Read next: St Paul's Within the Walls in Rome

Choosing a date

Start from the calendar on the booking page and pick the evening that suits your trip. Every date shows its own start time, which removes any guesswork about weekdays. Since the programme may vary between dates, no night is better on the music alone, and your choice can follow your itinerary, your dinner plans or the day you arrive in Rome. If your trip is still taking shape, reserve now and pay later, then cancel without cost until the day before if the plan changes. That flexibility is a good reason to book early and not at the last minute.

Seats and where to sit

Each date's booking page lists the seating on offer, and the options can differ between the tenor concerts held in the church. As a rule of thumb for any concert in a church nave, a seat near the front puts the voices at arm's length, while a seat further back gives the architecture room, so the walls, the arches and the apse become part of the picture. Neither is wrong; it depends on whether you came for the singers or for the setting. If you want to choose a seating category in advance, one of the other concerts in the same church, described below, lists categories. If you are unsure, a seat in the middle of the nave is a sensible compromise between the two.

The other ways to hear arias at St Paul's

Several organisers hold concerts in the same church. One offers a concert of lyrical arias, overtures and duets by an opera ensemble with soprano, tenor and baritone voices, with category A, category B and VIP seating. A second, run by a different company, is a shorter candlelit evening for a tenor and a soprano with piano, with front-row VIP seats and a venue that depends on the option you choose. For a short evening in a quiet room, the candle glow concert fits. If you want famous tenor pieces and a longer programme, this concert fits better. All three are on the cards further down the home page. Compare the options by the length of the evening and the seating, since those two details differ most.

Booking, cancelling and paying later

The concert is sold through GetYourGuide. Cancel with 24 hours' notice and the full fare returns, and the reserve-now option holds your place while you pay nothing today. Once booked, the confirmation holds the date and the start time. Because those terms belong to the booking, check them on the booking page when you reserve, and rely on the confirmation if anything differs from what you read here. If you are travelling as a group, book the same date for everyone in one go, so that you sit together and share one start time. The booking page carries the full terms, so take a minute to read them before you reserve.

Planning the evening around it

Via Nazionale was laid out as the road linking Termini station with the centre, and it runs from Piazza della Repubblica toward Piazza Venezia. The church therefore sits on a central street, and the centre of Rome offers plenty of places to eat before or after. The concert itself includes no meal, so decide in advance whether dinner comes first or follows. Check your confirmation for the start time, leave a margin for arriving, and keep the rest of the evening light, because the programme is long enough to enjoy without hurrying toward your next plan. The calendar also makes it easy to compare dates side by side, so you can see at a glance which evenings are open before you commit to one.

Who this isn't for

Look elsewhere if you want the original Three Tenors, because they do not perform here. The same goes if you expect a staged opera with scenery and costumes, since this is a concert for singers and instruments and not a production. It is a poor choice if you need a meal as part of the ticket, because none is included. And if you want a very short visit to the church, a different plan will suit you better, because this evening runs about 1.5 hours and the concert, not the building, is the reason to come.

A checklist before you book

These are the points to confirm on the booking page before paying, so that nothing about the evening surprises you once you are in Rome and the date is fixed. Most of them take less than a minute to check, and together they cover the choices that people most often want to change later, from the date to the seating and the way you pay.

• The evening you pick, weighed against the rest of your itinerary
• The seating the page offers for that date, if it offers a choice
• The cancellation rule: a full refund with 24 hours' notice
• Whether to pay at once or reserve first and pay later
• The language and currency the booking page is showing