Opportunity: Selection of performances for Opera Prima Festival XXII
Where: Rovigo, Italy
When: 10 / 14 June 2026
Deadline: 7th December 2025
Online Application: https://www.festivaloperaprima.it/images/2026/Inglese_-_Bando_opera_prima_2026.pdf
Fee to Participate or Apply: 0,00
Description Of Opportunity:
CALL FOR ENTRIES “OPERA PRIMA 2026”
The call is open to single artists or emerging and independent professional companies that work with professional purposes in the field of contemporary theatre, dance and performing arts.
DEADLINE: 7TH DECEMBER 2025
PREMISES
The Festival is organised by the Association Festival Opera Prima. Coherently with its history, Opera Prima wants to host and enhance the multiplicity of trends and researches in national and international contemporary performing arts.
THE OBJECT OF THE CALL
This call for entries is opened to national and international groups or artists that practice experimental theatre or experimentation on scenic languages.
By experimental theatre we mean a work that truly experiments with the dramaturgy (interpreted as scenic composition), the actor, the spectator and the scenic space.
PARTICIPATION REQUIREMENTS
The call is opened to Italian and international individuals or groups of professional theatre and performing arts, structured in any legal form that allows them to fulfil the administrative and bureaucratic practices necessary to realise their performance.
Only artistic projects that realise experimentation with scenic languages are eligible for selection. Amateur works, drama theater and performances of entertainment won’t be selected.
The Festival commission selects both original works that have not been yet performed, as well as works that have already debut, but which have not had an adequate circulation and/or visibility. The submitted works must be no longer than 60 minutes.
In case of selection, the artist agrees not to perform the aforementioned work and not to reproduce it within an 80 km radius of Rovigo for a minimum of 60 days before and 30 days after the dates of the festival.
CONDITIONS
The selected performances are going to be included in the XXII edition of Festival Opera Prima and are going to be performed from the 10th to the 14th of June 2026.
All expenses and practices concerning the organisation, communication, staff, promotion of the event will be in charge of the Festival. At each selected company will be paid, after the presentation of an invoice, a fee that has to be agreed and will be guaranteed the possibility of lodging at an affiliated guesthouse (just for the artists and technicians working in the performance).
CALENDAR AND PLACE OF PERFORMANCE
All the performances are going to be realised in Rovigo inside the venues used by the Festival from the 10th to the 14th June 2026. It is possible to realise performances also in unconventional locations and outdoor. The artistic direction can ask the selected company to realise more replies of the performance in the same day.
OBLIGATIONS
Selected candidates commit to:
• support the promotion of FESTIVAL OPERA PRIMA throughout their channels (web site, social, press office…); • respect Festival praxis regarding set-up times and rules;
• perform the selected work on the agreed day or days.
How To Apply:
SUBMISSION
Submissions must include:
• Artistic curriculum of the company or the artist;
• Artistic presentation and technical rider of the performance;
• Link to the full video of the performance (if the proposal consists of a debut, link to a video of rehearsals). Video material has to
be viewed directly online (by a link) and it mustn’t be downloaded (no wetransfer, google drive, etc.). Each group or individual can submit only one proposal.
The application has to be sent fulfilling the form online at https://forms.gle/ekRMo8SijUVU9atr8 by 12.00 am on December 7th 2025.
We do not accept other ways of sending materials.
Participants authorize, pursuant to Law 196/2003 and GDPR – European Regulation no. 2016/679, the processing of personal data and the use of the sent informations for all the purposes related to the announcement.
SELECTION
The selection of the performances is entrusted to the unquestionable judgment of the artistic direction of the Festival.
By submitting their candidacy, participants authorise the use of sent images for the communication and publications related to the initiative.
PUBLICATION OF RESULTS
The contact person of the selected projects is going to be contacted by Association Festival Opera Prima once the selection process has been completed. Anyhow, the selected artists/groups’ names are going to be published on the website of the Festival.
Contact Email: diana.ferrantini@gmail.com
Website: https://www.festivaloperaprima.it/en/
These posts are not affiliated with Contemporary Performance Network, but are of interest to our community. We post these with the caveat to check the sources and research the opportunities or views expressed in the posts.
