Donizetti Theater Foundation
The 2024-2025 Theater Season

Tuesday, October 14 marks the beginning of new subscription sales for the 2025/2026 Theater Season
and from October 21 new subscriptions for Altri Percorsi and Operettas are available

Great success for the Theater Season renewal campaign: over 92% compared to last Season

The countdown has begun for the 2025-2026 Theater Season and Altri Percorsi of the Donizetti Theater Foundation. Tuesday, October 14 marks the start of new subscription sales for the Theater Season, while from Tuesday, October 21, subscriptions for Altri Percorsi series and the Operetta Season will be available. From Tuesday, November 28, individual show tickets will be available for purchase for all seasons. From October 14, tickets are also available for other events included in the Theater Season: the December 31 musical The Dream Factory, concerts at the Teatro Sociale, Rigoletto: The Mystery of the Theater for Opera Family.

All programs can be viewed on the Foundation’s website www.teatrodonizetti.it.
Online sales at www.vivaticket.com.

“Over 92% of Theater Season subscribers have renewed their trust in us, and the high demand from educational institutions has already led us to add an extra performance of Lysistrata with Lella Costa and two more of The Late Mattia Pascal with Giorgio Marchesi, one of the Altri Percorsi titles. The start of new subscription sales, and soon individual tickets, couldn’t begin under better circumstances,” comments Massimo Boffelli, General Director of the Donizetti Theater Foundation.
Specifically, here’s a summary of the two Seasons.

 

Drama Season

The beginning, from December 6 to 14, 2025, is entrusted to a show that refers to our country’s theatrical tradition, specifically to the Ligurian one embodied by Gilberto Govi and his
Pignasecca e Pignaverde
, one of the celebrated Genoese comedian’s warhorses, revived by an overwhelming Tullio Solenghi, with scenic design by Davide Livermore. Following, from January 17 to 25, 2026, the Donizetti, with
Crisis of Nerves
, will host for the first time a direction by Peter Stein, who returned to his beloved Chekhov with the three famous one-act plays The Bear, On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco and The Proposal, interpreted in rotation by various actors, among whom Maddalena Crippa stands out.
Another great actress starring in a classic will be Lella Costa, who will perform in
Lysistrata
 directed by Serena Sinigaglia: the show will come to Bergamo from February 7 to 15, with Monday the 9th’s performance added due to high demand from schools.
The Theater Season program will feature other prestigious actors and directors. Among the latter, Sergio Rubini directs
The Jekyll Case
, choosing to stage the literary classic The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, in a reinterpretation that transports the text into an engaging, cinematic setting. On stage from February 21 to March 1, Daniele Russo and other actors.
With the Venetian company Stivalaccio Teatro, always dedicated to the study and representation of commedia dell’arte, we will return, from March 7 to 15, to traditional theater, with
Harlequin Mute for Fear
, one of the most performed canvases in early 18th century Paris, reproposed for the first time in modern times.
In April, from the 11th to the 19th, it will be Gabriele Lavia‘s turn who, also as director, will present
Long Day’s Journey into Night
, the text with which Eugene O’Neill won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1957, staging the painful secrets of a microcosm of a dysfunctional American family.
Finally, from May 9 to 17, another protagonist of Italian theater, Maria Paiato, will be engaged in an important interpretative challenge, taking on the role of one of the cruelest characters written by Shakespeare:
Richard III
.

 

Altri Percorsi

Altri Percorsi has always been an open window on experimental theater, on the intersection between different languages, thus offering spectators the opportunity to encounter various significant experiences of the contemporary theater scene. As usual, variety is also provided by new proposals: five of the seven titles will showcase artists never hosted before. Five of the scheduled performances will take place at the Teatro Sociale, while two others will be presented at the Teatro Donizetti.
The season starts in December with two new productions: on Thursday the 4th with Christmas at the Cupiellos Performance for actor cum figuris (Critics’ Prize 2023), with Luca Saccoia, in the role of Tommasino, and with him on stage seven puppets to which he gives soul, voice, and character, recreating Eduardo’s text and revitalizing its roots; on Thursday the 18th with
The Ghost Singer-Songwriter
, a theater-song show by Ivan Talarico, which invites reflection on the theme of artistic authorship, involving the audience in a journey through the Italian singer-songwriter world.
The new year will welcome back Carrozzeria Orfeo on January 15: we last saw them in 2023 in a basement kitchen, and now we find them with
We’ll Save the World Before Dawn
, on a satellite in space inside a luxurious clinic specializing in contemporary addiction treatment. The company’s bold and brilliant spirit remains unchanged.In February, Thursday 5 and Friday 6 morning and evening, and Saturday 7 morning, Bergamo’s own Giorgio Marchesi will present one of Pirandello’s classics:
The Late Mattia Pascal
. In this case too, student requests were so numerous that the initially planned two performances had to be doubled.
Also in February, on the 19th, Circo Zoé will arrive at the Donizetti, an international company that includes two Bergamo natives, Simone Benedetti and Diego Zanoli, among its founders. In the Italian-French production
Deserance
, Circo Zoé explores the archetype of journey, combining as always the highest level of acrobatic technique with a dreamlike and imaginative dramatic approach.
Also at the Donizetti, on Thursday, March 5, another welcome return: Alessandro Bergonzoni, who with Here Come the Therefore (Fry, Blue Sun and the Story of the Young Rolling Shutter) walks like a tightrope walker through words, to keep our increasingly at-risk humanity in balance around a “negotiating table”. Bergonzoni is always Bergonzoni.
The series will close on Thursday, March 26, with matinee and evening performances of Ilva Football Club, with which we will meet for the first time Usine Baug and the Maniglio Brothers: theirs is the task of recounting, through football narrative, the events of the city of Taranto, closely linked to the history of the former Ilva, Europe’s largest and most polluting steel plant.
For several years, Altri Percorsi has also been a sort of training ground to bring high school students closer to theater, thanks to a subscription offer designed specifically for them.