About Festival
8th Biennial of the NODO Festival / New Opera Days Ostrava
will take place in
June 23–27, 2026
The eighth biennial of the international festival NODO / New Opera Days Ostrava will take place at the end of June 2026 and will present a total of seven operas. The festival will unfold across the city – from the Antonín Dvořák Theatre and the Jiří Myron Theatre to the former PALACE hotel complex and the open-air spaces of Komenský Park (meadow and tennis courts). The diversity of venues naturally reflects the thematic scope of this year’s programme, ranging from intimate personal statements to philosophical and scientific concepts, from dystopian visions of the future to a world inspired by the circus.
The festival’s international dimension is underscored by the participation of composers from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, the USA and Canada – including Richard Ayres, Milan Guštar, Jakub Rataj, Elliott Sharp, Ana Sokolović, Kristýna Švihálková and Miroslav Tóth.
✹ PROGRAM ✹
The goal of NODO / New Opera Days Ostrava festival is to contribute to the discussion about the evolution of opera and to demonstrate its possibilities in the 21st century. Since 2012, the biennial festival has been alternating with Ostrava Days, which largely focuses on concert music. NODO is an Ostrava Center for New Music production co-organized by The National Moravian-Silesian Theatre and constitutes the only festival of its kind in the Czech Republic.
NODO features Czech or world premieres and presents both concert versions and full stage renditions at venues ranging from traditional theaters to industrial spaces. It also stimulates the production of new works for the festival: Martin Smolka, Petr Kotík, Petr Cígler, František Chaloupka or Idin Samimi Mofakham have all penned operas for NODO. The festival has provided Czech theater-goers with the opportunity to experience operas by John Cage, Salvatore Sciarrino, Bernhard Lang, Richard Ayres, Rudolf Komorous or Iannis Xenakis for the first time; NODO also commissions new works by young composers and brings together novel production teams that defy opera-world traditions.
Check out the list of what has been organized over the past ten years in the section Past editions >>>
