Programme
- The 63rd Nuova Consonanza Festival, titled "Tempo," takes place in Rome in 2026.
- Six opera events run from November 6 to December 12, 2026.
- The season opens November 6 with "100 Years of Mauro Bortolotti and Franco Evangelisti," directed by Tonino Battista.
- Felicita Brusoni, Livia Rado and Ljuba Bergamelli each appear in two events.
- The closing "Mediaeterrae" concert on December 12 features works by Giacinto Scelsi, Karin Wetzel and Valerio Sannicandro.
The 63rd Nuova Consonanza Festival, titled "Tempo," will run its 2026 season in Rome, with six opera and vocal events scheduled between November 6 and December 12, 2026. The program, announced by the festival, leans heavily on contemporary Italian composition, live electronics and cross-disciplinary staging.
What does the season actually contain?
The opening opera event, set for November 6, 2026, is a centenary tribute: "100 Years of Mauro Bortolotti and Franco Evangelisti." Felicita Brusoni and the Evo Ensemble perform, joined by Blow-up Percussion and the Parco della Musica Contemporanea Ensemble (PMCE), with live electronics by Nicola Bernardini. Tonino Battista directs. Bortolotti and Evangelisti are central figures of postwar Italian experimentalism, and the double anniversary frames the whole season's historical axis.
On November 27, 2026, Michela Varvaro performs music by Andrea Veneri inside Francesco Pellisari's installation "The Shape of Sound." The announcement lists this as an installation-based event rather than a staged opera — one of several dates where the vocal and the visual share billing.
December carries the season's weight
Four of the six events fall in the first twelve days of December.
- December 1, 2026: Mauro Cardi's "The Diary of Eve" stars Felicita Brusoni alongside dancer Gaia Bella, with the Gamo Ensemble conducted by Francesco Gesualdi. Cristina Papi directs.
- December 5, 2026: Livia Rado and Ljuba Bergamelli perform with PMCE in a concert of works by Philippe Manoury, conducted by Tonino Battista.
- December 7, 2026: Rado and Bergamelli return for "La fabbrica illuminata," with Andrea Veneri as sound director and Lorenzo Letizia curating space and video installations. The program includes vocal works by Daniel D'Adamo, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Alessandro Cipriani, and Daria Scia.
- December 12, 2026: The "Mediaeterrae" concert features the ensembles SoloVoices and Court-circuit, directed by Jean Deroyer, performing works by Giacinto Scelsi, Karin Wetzel, and Valerio Sannicandro.
What the announcement leaves open
The release names artists, ensembles, directors and dates — but not venues, running times, ticket prices, or the full non-operatic concert program, which a festival of this scale normally includes. The title "Tempo" is given without explanation. Whether the Scelsi programming in "Mediaeterrane" connects to the Bortolotti-Evangelisti centenary is left for audiences to infer; the festival does not say.
What the season does signal, clearly, is casting depth: Brusoni appears twice, Rado and Bergamelli twice each, and PMCE twice. Rome's new-music audiences will effectively see two repertory companies in rotation across six weeks.
For listeners tracking the Italian contemporary scene, the November 6 centenary evening and the December 7 "La fabbrica illuminata" event — a work long tied to industrial and political themes in the Italian repertoire — are the dates to watch, with full venue and booking details still to come from the festival.
Source: Opera Wire
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