For its 16th edition, the Campania Teatro Festival returns with over 100 events for a month of theatre, music and dance from 9 June to 9 July. The event’s claim is “Battiti per la bellezza”, with which the intention is to celebrate the very essence of theatre, made up of moments that, like heartbeats, remain embedded in an eternal present of beauty, of which the stage itself is the spokesman.

With the conclusion of the COVID emergency, the event finally regains the centrality of traditional theatre spaces and changes location to the outdoors. In addition to the Neapolitan theatres (Politeama, Mercadante, Trianon, Nuovo, Sala Assoli and TAN) and the Colosseo di Baiano (Av), many of the events of the Campania Teatro Festival 2023 have for the first time the Villa Floridiana in Naples as their setting, where two stages are set up permanently. The other events are scheduled to take place in some of the region’s most fascinating and historic spaces, such as the Teatro Grande in Pompei, the Cathedral of Salerno, Villa Campolieto in Ercolano (Na), the Foresta in Tora e Piccilli (Ce), the Tabacchificio in Paestum (Sa), Palazzo Coppola in Valle/Sessa Cilento (Sa), and the Cortile del Museo in Sarno (Sa).

The multidisciplinary structure of the event’s programming has been confirmed, thanks to which the Festival has come to the attention of the national and international scene, becoming an important part of the Italia Festival network and the EFA (European Festival Association). 10 are the Sections of this edition (International, National Prose, Dance, Observatory, SportOpera, Music, Literature, Special Projects, Exhibitions, Cinema); in particular, for the Special Projects section, “Il sogno reale” returns for its third consecutive year. I Borbone di Napoli, a project by Ruggero Cappuccio and curated by Marco Perrillo, gives life and voice to five short stories inspired by the Bourbon era. Also in the same section is “Clytemnestra”, interpreted by Isabella Ragonese for a co-production by Campania Teatro Festival / Fondazione Campania dei Festival as part of the “Pompei Theatrum Mundi” festival. A name of excellence in the International section is that of John Malkovich, star of the last evening of the Festival at the Politeama with “In the solitude of cotton fields” by Koltès, directed by Timofey Kuliabyn.

Once again it is Maestro Mimmo Paladino who portrays the soul of the event, creating for the catalogue and promotional materials a work of art dedicated to the knight-errant Don Quixote (the subject of one of Paladino’s films); an exhibition is also dedicated to the maestro’s films through the stage photographs taken by Pasquale Palmieri, curated by Maria Savarese and set up in the Villa Campolieto in Ercolano from the 22nd of June to the 20th of September.

The discounted ticket price policy has been further confirmed, with pricing set at 8 and 5 euros, with free admission for the weaker social classes. Finally, the proceeds from the sale of bags and T-shirts at the infopoint in Via Luca Giordano will be entirely donated to the oncology department of the Fondazione Pascale – Istituto Nazionale Tumori.