Press Release: On Tennis Courts, in a Park, and in a Dilapidated Hotel Ballroom. The NODO Festival Transforms Ostrava into an Operatic Stage!!!

Publikováno: 28.5.2026

Ostrava, May 28, 2026 – The NODO / New Opera Days Ostrava festival begins on June 23 and, over the course of five days, will present seven new operatic works both on the two stages of the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre and in public space – or, conversely, in locations that have been inaccessible to the public for years. The distinctive architecture and atmosphere of these carefully selected sites will become an integral part of the performances themselves. Alongside traditional theatre venues, the creative teams and composers of this year’s NODO festival will also transform tennis courts and an adjacent meadow in the central Comenius Gardens, as well as the former Hotel Palace complex currently undergoing redevelopment. It is in these unconventional settings that audiences will encounter world premieres of operas by contemporary composers.

Building on the experience of previous editions staged in Ostrava’s compressor hall and the former miners’ bathhouse at the Lower Vítkovice industrial complex, at the covered public square Triple Hall Karolina, in the Tatran basketball hall, as well as on the Opálená ski slope in the Beskydy Mountains, this year’s festival presents the new dystopian sci-fi opera White Death by Miroslav Tóth. Its world premiere will take place on Wednesday, June 24 at 9 pm in Comenius Gardens (Komenského sady), specifically on the adjacent meadow and tennis courts of the OSTRA Sport Centre. The opera combines music theatre, movement, and absurd sci-fi imagination, while loosely continuing Tóth’s previous highly distinctive operatic projects Man in a Spacesuit and Nulanus.

The opera is set after the Earth has been knocked out of its orbit, with humanity fighting over the last habitable territories. An ageing Finnish sniper named Simo teaches trees how to shoot in order to protect him from intruders, while former teleshopping salesman Horst manufactures androids that care for lonely people. By the end of the performance, even the trees themselves will join in the applause.

The musical direction will be led by conductor Jan Bubák, with stage direction by Nela H. Kornetová, choreography by Finnish performer and choreographer Pasi Mäkelä, and set and costume design by Matěj Sýkora. The cast also brings together performers of significant international standing: soprano Beatriz Gaudêncio Ramos will appear as the Finnish Second World War sniper Simo, while mezzosoprano Bella Adamova takes on the role of German marketing icon Horst Fuchs. The musical backbone of the production will be provided by the American-Austrian Mivos Quartet.

On Thursday, June 25, the spaces of the former Hotel Palace in the centre of Ostrava – including the historic Deininger Hall – will host two performances in a single evening. An operatic stage in a place closed to the public for many years? The development group ANTRACIT will open the interiors of the dilapidated complex to the NODO festival: a raw, almost horror-like environment of a once-famous hotel and its former ballroom, just before the entire building undergoes a major transformation significant for the city itself.

Audiences will be able to experience New Theory of Harmony, a new operatic work by Czech composer Milan Guštar. The world premiere moves between music theatre, sound installation, and philosophical reflection on music, drawing on the texts and ideas of composer and theorist Alois Hába, one of the most important pioneers of microtonal music in the 20th century. The libretto is assembled from excerpts of Hába’s extensive publication New Theory of Harmony. What originally began as a dense theoretical text on music transforms in the opera into an existential drama about the search for knowledge, intuition, order, and artistic freedom. On stage, the “body” and “soul” of Alois Hába symbolically confront one another through two contrasting voices: baritone Roman Janál and soprano Markéta Drabina Schaffartzik. The musical direction will be led by conductor Pavel Šnajdrtogether with the ensemble Ostravská banda. The production is directed by Slovak theatre director Veronika Trokšiarová, with stage design by Laura Černáková.

The second opera of the evening will be In the Eyes of the Dragonfly by Czech composerJakub Rataj, also commissioned by the festival. This one-act work, inspired by Japanese haiku, is based on a verse by Kobayashi Issa – “In the eyes of the dragonfly / distant mountains / are reflected” – which becomes the central image of the entire opera. The libretto, assembled from texts by Matsuo Bashō, Kobayashi Issa, and Yosa Buson, creates a sequence of delicate existential images emerging from detail, silence, and concentrated observation.

Seven musical tableaux gradually unfold from a single sound and unison into a layered structure of voices, string quartet, electronics, and movement. Alongside four vocal soloists – soprano Beatriz Gaudêncio Ramos, mezzosoprano Elmaz Mrkvičková, contralto Andrea Pietrová, and countertenor Johannes Wieners – the production features the Polish NeoQuartet and dancers led by choreographer Helena Ratajová. The musical direction will once again be led by conductor Pavel Šnajdr, while the production is directed by Gabriela Gabašová.

The eighth biennial edition of the NODO / New Opera Days Ostrava will also present on the main stages of the two buildings of the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre, world premieres of new works by British composer Richard Ayres, emerging Czech composer Kristýna Švihálková (June 23), and New York composer Elliott Sharp (June 26). The festival will also host the first European performance of the opera Clown(s) by Canadian composer Ana Sokolović (June 27).

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