Urgent Messages from NODO. The 8th Biennial Comes to a Close

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.

Download the press release • Photos

A World of Clowns, Catastrophic Visions, Philosophy, and Old Age. NODO – An Irresistible Urge to Reflect on the World!

Ostrava, June 17, 2026 ▸▸▸ Seven new operas over five festival days will explore subjects ranging from old age and dementia to philosophy, science, ecological visions of the future, and the world of clowns and travelling performers. From June 23 to 27, the eighth edition of the NODO / New Opera Days Ostrava will present works by Czech and international composers that demonstrate opera’s continuing vitality as an art form capable of responding to the contemporary world, asking questions, and offering new ways of understanding it. Festival preparations are in full swing, with several creative teams already in Ostrava for intensive rehearsals. This year again, each performance will be preceded by a dramaturgical introduction. Music journalist, dramaturg, and long-time festival collaborator Boris Klepal will guide audiences through the context of the works, their creators, and the broader landscape of contemporary opera. The following text was written by him.

Download the press release • Photos

On tennis courts, in a park, and in a dilapidated hotel ballroom. The NODO festival transforms Ostrava into an operatic stage!!!

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.

Download the press release • Photos

New opera festival explores what it means to be human

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.

Download the press release • Photos

New opera and seven premiere performances

Ostrava, February 26, 2026 ▸▸▸ The eighth biennial of the international festival New Opera Days Ostrava (NODO) will present seven productions during the final week of June. Six of them will receive their world premieres in Ostrava, while the seventh had its recent premiere in Montreal. Composers from the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Slovakia and the Czech Republic will gather in Ostrava – Richard Ayres, Ana Sokolović, Elliott Sharp, Miroslav Tóth, Milan Guštar, Jakub Rataj and Kristýna Švihálková. Founded in 2012, NODO is the only continuous showcase of contemporary music theatre in the Czech Republic. Organised through the collaboration of the Ostrava Center for New Music (OCNM) and the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre (NMST), the festival has consistently explored opera as a living genre and its capacity to respond to the transformations of today’s world. The 2026 edition will feature leading soloists, creative teams and distinguished conductors. Members of the international Ostrava Band will form the festival’s “opera orchestra”, joined by the Canticum Ostrava choir and dancers, including performers from NDM. Performances will take place not only at the Antonín Dvořák Theatre and the Jiří Myron Theatre, but also in the decaying complex of the former Hotel Palace in the city centre and outdoors on the lawns and tennis courts of Comenius Gardens (Komenského sady). The festival dramaturgy addresses themes of birth, love, memory, identity, solitude and hope, reflecting how contemporary creators across generations mirror our lives in their work.

Download the press release • Photos