Originally Posted by tom tulpe

That's just the reserved seating. I watched quite a few opera performances there in the late 1980s and the seconda gradinata was very popolare. Tickets were a very reasonable ITL 15,000, which is about € 7.50 in today's money. People would sing along and all that. No ties, but of course lots of Italians who would be dressed nicely, just not in formal wear. Because of the open seating, you would come as early as possible to get a good place to sit.

Then vendors would appear offering seat cushions. At first you'd laugh, but several hours sitting on stone, with no seats, backrests or anything, would test most bums' pain tolerance, and on every pass the seat cushion vendor would find thankful new clients.