Press Release: New Opera Festival Explores What It Means to Be Human
Publikováno: 21.4.2026
Ostrava, April 21, 2026 – Over the course of five days (June 23–27), Ostrava will present seven operatic premieres – music theatre by contemporary creators. The eighth edition of NODO / New Opera Days Ostrava will take place both in traditional theatre venues and beyond. Co-organised by the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre and the Ostrava Center for New Music, the festival highlights opera as a living process and an open genre. This year’s program brings together established figures of the international scene with an emerging generation, presenting their distinctive perspectives on opera as a medium capable of transcending its own boundaries.
The individual productions expand the traditional notion of what opera can be: they draw on elements of avant-garde librettos, performance, video, choreography, sound design and electronics – including Ondes Martenot – and, above all, a poetics infused with themes that resonate urgently with our lives. This year’s NODO festival is unique in that all seven new operas are created on site, across various locations in Ostrava, with the composers themselves present throughout the process.
On both main stages of the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre (the Antonín Dvořák Theatre and the Jiří Myron Theatre), audiences will encounter three leading figures of contemporary music: British composer Richard Ayres (1965), Canadian-Serbian composer Ana Sokolović (1968), and American composer Elliott Sharp (1951). Alongside them, the festival will present young Czech composer and percussionist Kristýna Švihálková (1997), whose work lies at the intersection of music, performance, and visual art, bringing a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to the operatic form.
On the stage of the Antonín Dvořák Theatre, Švihálková will present her instrumental theatre work Company, inspired by a text by Samuel Beckett. The piece brings together live music, recorded voice, movement, and video projection, creating a fragmentary space on the threshold between reality and inner consciousness. Two percussionists – one of them the composer herself – play a central role, unfolding a sonic and visual structure in which themes of memory, solitude, and the longing for connection continuously shift and transform. The premiere will take place on Tuesday, June 23, at the Antonín Dvořák Theatre.
Richard Ayres returns to NODO following the successful presentations of his earlier operas No. 42 (In the Alps) and No. 50 (The Garden). This time, he introduces his new work No. 61 (David), inspired by his experience of his father’s progressing dementia. The intimate theme of memory and its disintegration is treated with Ayres’s characteristic imagination, wit, and sensitivity. The musical layer intertwines with a vivid visual imagination, creating a sequence of images poised between reality and fantasy, in which personal experience transforms into a more universal reflection. The solo parts will be performed by bass Nicholas Isherwood and violinist Conrad Harris. Ostravská banda will be conducted by Marek Šedivý, Music Director of Opera at the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre. The staging is directed by Michal Pěchouček, in collaboration with set and costume designer Patricia Talacko and lighting designer Václav Hruška. The production will be presented on Tuesday, June 23, at the Antonín Dvořák Theatre.
Elliott Sharp’s full-length opera SUBSTANCE: Infinite Spinoza draws on the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza and develops it through a complex scenic form. The production brings together orchestral music, electronics, video, and movement, working with a principle of “optics” – a perspective that oscillates between the microscopic and the cosmic. The composer himself will perform the electronic part live on stage, shaping both the sonic and conceptual dimensions of the work. The title role of Spinoza will be performed by tenor Valentino Blasina, accompanied by the Ostravská banda and the Canticum Ostrava choir. Conducted by Petr Kotík, the staging is directed by Lukáš Jiřička, with a creative team including Carolina Arandia (choreography), Pavla Beranová (lighting design), and Janene Higgins (video projection). The premiere of Sharp’s new work will take place on Friday, June 26, at the Jiří Myron Theatre.
A major highlight of the festival will be the presentation of Ana Sokolović’s opera Clown(s), marking her return to the Czech Republic following the strong success of her earlier opera Svadba (The Wedding). The new work, which received an enthusiastic reception at its world premiere in Montreal just a few months ago, will be presented in Ostrava in its European premiere. Drawing on the traditions of commedia dell’arte, clowning, and cinematic poetics, it fluidly combines diverse musical and theatrical languages – from Balkan rhythms and stylised Italian songs to fragments of familiar musical gestures. Both playful and melancholic, the opera traces the arc of human life in its entirety, from birth through moments of joy and vitality to vulnerability, solitude, and mortality. As Sokolović reflects: “Life is so sad – but it’s also hilarious. Clowns are weirdos; they surprise us, they don’t do what you expect. Like life. And they say a lot about the tragicomic nature of the human condition. I think that deep down, we are all weirdos.”
In the exceptionally demanding solo roles, Canadian artists will perform: soprano Aline Kutan, mezzo-soprano Mireille Lebel, tenor Andrew Haji, and baritone Bruno Roy. Equally challenging parts await the instrumentalists of the Ostravská banda, including guest Canadian Ondes Martenot player Wesley Shen, as well as the Canticum Ostrava choir under the direction of Jurij Galatenko. The opera will be conducted by Bruno Ferrandis, with a new staging created by the tandem Jiří Nekvasil and David Bazika. Clown(s) will close this year’s biennale on Saturday, June 27, at the Antonín Dvořák Theatre.
Alongside productions in theatre venues, NODO 2026 will present three additional operatic premieres created in close connection with specific locations across Ostrava. These site-specific projects expand the perception of opera into entirely unexpected spaces. On Wednesday, June 24, the dystopian sci-fi opera The White Death by Miroslav Tóth will unfold on the main meadow of Komenský Park as well as in the nearby tennis and badminton hall of the OSTRA Sport Centre. On Thursday, June 25, audiences will have a unique opportunity to enter two different rooms within the abandoned former Hotel Palace, where Milan Guštar’s New Theory of Harmony and Jakub Rataj’s haiku opera In the Eyes of a Dragonfly will be presented.
Over the course of five days, the festival will present seven new operas, united not only by a focus on contemporary music but also by a shared need to continually ask fundamental questions: what does it mean to be human, and what meaning does our existence hold – especially in today’s world?
