Press Release: Urgent Messages from NODO. The 8th NODO / New Opera Days Ostrava Biennial Comes to a Close
Publikováno: 29.6.2026
Ostrava, June 29, 2026 – The eighth edition of NODO / New Opera Days Ostrava came to a close on Saturday, June 27, with a performance of Clown(s) by Serbian-Canadian composer Ana Sokolović. Organized by the Ostrava Center for New Music (OCNM) in collaboration with the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre (NDM), NODO remains a unique platform for contemporary music theatre in Central Europe. Over the course of five days, this year's festival presented seven premieres of new operatic works by contemporary composers, many of them offering urgent and visionary reflections on the world we live in. Composers and creative teams from across Europe and North America explored some of today's most pressing questions – both deeply personal and profoundly societal. In full theatres, a derelict hotel, a city park and a tennis hall, audiences encountered works reflecting on loneliness and self-discovery, the disintegration of identity, memory loss, the struggle for survival on Earth, the limits of artistic freedom, the poetry of haiku, and clowns holding up a mirror to our own lives. Above all, however, the festival celebrated love as a force capable of overcoming hatred.
Seven operas – seven composers. The youngest of them, Kristýna Švihálková (1997), presented her operatic debut, Company, commissioned by the festival. Premiered on June 23, the work was inspired by a short story by Samuel Beckett. In this music theatre piece in seven scenes, the composer herself performed throughout the entire production, alongside her onstage double, Aya Masui, in a staging developed in collaboration with director Jiří Nekvasil.
“The two percussionists form the alpha and omega of the entire performance. Separated by a glowing red panel at the center of the stage, each inhabits her own musical and visual world while simultaneously serving as the other's mirror image.” – Markéta Dvořáková, Ostravan.cz
One of Europe's most acclaimed opera composers, Richard Ayres (1965), wrote his new “operetta” for baritone, No. 61 (David), especially for the festival. The work featured baritone Nicholas Isherwood as the sole singer on stage, joined by members of the international ensemble Ostravská banda under the baton of Marek Šedivý, in a production directed by Michal Pěchouček (June 23).
“The music is utterly compelling – parodic, ironic, stuttering and faltering, much like a person with dementia trying to say something but unable to get the words out...” – Markéta Dvořáková, Ostravan.cz
“An artistically compelling treatment of the subject, free of self-pity or sentimentality... Ostravská banda played superbly, with outstanding solo violin by Conrad Harris, while baritone Nicholas Isherwood delivered a magnificent performance.” – Boris Klepal, Czech Radio Vltava
In the heart of Ostrava's Comenius Gardens (Komenského sady) – beneath the open sky and the canopy of a tree-lined avenue – and later inside the vast OSTRA tennis hall, audiences experienced White Death, the apocalyptic opera by Slovak composer Miroslav Tóth (1981) on June 24. Bella Adamova appeared as the legendary TV salesman Horst Fuchs, while Portuguese soprano Beatriz G. Ramos portrayed the legendary sniper Simo Häyhä. The Mivos Quartet, members of Ostravská banda, and the NODO Dance Company – appearing as "shooting trees" – performed under the baton of Jan Bubák, in a production directed by Nela H. Kornetová.
“Within the context of Tóth's Shadows trilogy, White Death at NODO became a remarkable blend of grotesque humor, anxiety, and festival enchantment. The performance was shared by an estimated three hundred captivated spectators, many of them young. The reception was enthusiastic. That is good news for contemporary opera. (…) White Death is not for those who expect opera to offer beautiful melodies, psychologically developed characters, and the comfort of a fixed seat in the auditorium. It is opera as an event, a journey, a physical experience, and a darkly comic message from the end of the world.” – Helena Havlíková, Ostravan.cz
Thanks to a collaboration between the festival and the building's owner, ANTRACIT (Purposia Group), the former Palace Hotel briefly came back to life before its major renovation, serving as the venue for two chamber operas (June 25). Composer Milan Guštar (1963) paid tribute to the visionary microtonal pioneer Alois Hába with his opera New Theory of Harmony, named after Hába's landmark theoretical treatise. Markéta Drabina Schaffartzik performed the role of Hába's soul, while Roman Janál embodied the physical presence of the composer through a declamatory vocal part. Pavel Šnajdr conducted Ostravská banda in the weathered foyer of the Palace Hotel, with Veronika Trokšiarová directing the production.
“A musically powerful, uncompromising work, brilliantly performed by Ostravská banda... A compelling reflection on the search for artistic freedom... The audience – and especially the musicians – experienced urban exploration firsthand.” – Boris Klepal, Czech Radio Vltava
Jakub Rataj's (1984) one-act opera In the Eyes of a Dragonfly, also commissioned by the festival, received its world premiere in the former ballroom of the Palace Hotel. Based on seven haiku poems, the work brought together four vocal soloists, four dancers, the Polish NeoQuartet, and Mikuláš Mrva performing the electronic part, all under the baton of Pavel Šnajdr. The production was directed by Gabriela Gabašová, with choreography by Helena Ratajová playing a central role in the staging.
“In the Eyes of a Dragonfly is a cohesive, powerful, and thoroughly contemporary work that deserves to be performed far beyond the framework of the New Opera Days.” – Lenka Nota, Ostravan.cz
Avant-garde composer, guitarist, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp (1951) completed his one-act opera SUBSTANCE: The Infinite Spinoza in New York especially for NODO. “For me, Spinoza is one of the most important philosophers because he bridges the Middle Ages and the modern era,” the composer told the Czech news outlet Novinky.cz. Croatian tenor Valentino Blasina dominated the stage of the Jiří Myron Theatre in the title role, while Jurij Galatenko prepared the Canticum Ostrava choir and Petr Kotík conducted the international ensemble Ostravská banda. The production was created by the artistic team led by director Lukáš Jiřička.
“The supreme mystery of despotism is to keep men deceived, and to cloak the fear by which they must be restrained under the guise of religion, so that they will fight for their slavery as if they were fighting for their salvation.” – Baruch Spinoza, 17th century
The 2026 NODO festival concluded on June 27 with Clown(s) by Ana Sokolović (1968), subtitled A Moving Tribute to the Human Experience. Across seven scenes, the opera leads audiences – through both laughter and gravity, tension and release – along the life journey of a family of clowns, from birth and childhood to adolescence, love, old age, and death. The four Canadian soloists who created the work's highly acclaimed world premiere in Montreal reunited for its European premiere in Ostrava. The dancing clowns were portrayed by Rita Pires and Števo Capko. The Canticum Ostrava choir was prepared by Jurij Galatenko, while members of Ostravská banda were joined by Canadian guest Wesley Shen on the ondes Martenot. Bruno Ferrandis conducted the performance, and the production was led by director Jiří Nekvasil.
“We don't take clowns seriously, but they take us seriously. We laugh at them because they do the things we cannot – or are too afraid to do ourselves, even though we would dearly love to.” – Ana Sokolović, Respekt magazine
The NODO festival attracted large audiences from the Czech Republic and abroad, while performances were attended and reviewed by Czech and international critics and cultural journalists.
