The Donizetti Theatre Foundation, together with the Municipality of Bergamo, announces the 2025|2026 Season of Prose and Other Paths, the backbone of the Theatre Season, whose complete program also includes Operetta and Opera, as well as numerous educational projects currently being defined. A rich and articulated program that will take place at the Donizetti Theatre and the Social Theatre over six months, from December 2025 to May 2026, with seven titles on the bill for the Prose Season, with eight performances for each show (from Saturday to Sunday of the following week; Monday rest), and as many for Other Paths, with three matinees.
In bringing greetings and renewing the commitment of the Municipal Administration, Mayor Elena Carnevali emphasizes how the Season of Prose and Other Paths occupies “a prominent place in the life of the City of Bergamo. It is a crucial moment of sharing and cultural growth: theater, in its multitude of languages, is the mirror of reality and reality is reflected in it, with all its burden of humanity. Bergamo has long been a city with a pronounced theatrical vocation, and the work carried out by the Donizetti Theatre Foundation, thanks to its diversified activities, is the bearer of great values, also in terms of educating younger generations. All this contributes to making our city even more special.”
Sergio Gandi, Councilor for Culture, expresses his appreciation for artistic choices “of absolute quality that make a fundamental contribution to the cultural offer of Bergamo. A city that explores different expressive fields – from music to cinema, from visual arts to dance to spoken theater indeed – and that draws its richness from research and experimentation. Not just simple spectacular entertainment – though this is obviously needed too – but a set of proposals, including courageous ones, that can stimulate interest and curiosity.”
George Berta, President of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation, takes the opportunity to thank those who work for the success of all the Foundation’s activities: “The positive results achieved in recent years are the fruit of teamwork, from those who support us, both public and private entities, to the staff and those who collaborate with us. My thanks therefore go beyond formalities: behind every contribution, whether economic or professional, there is total adherence to a vision we believe in. A vision with broad horizons that positions the Donizetti Theatre Foundation as a qualitatively reliable interlocutor for anyone who cares about cultural and entertainment proposals, in the city but also elsewhere.”
Massimo Boffelli, General Director of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation, draws inspiration from the success of the 2024|2025 Season: “Over 52,000 were the total spectators for Prose, 5,000 for Other Paths. These are significant, important numbers that once again attest to our driving force, the attention and affection of the public for our proposals. Last year we increased the performances for Prose from seven to eight, which we naturally confirm: a number of performances that – we can state with confidence – few other theaters at a national level can boast today, even in cities with a numerically larger population than Bergamo. The Season of Prose and Other Paths thus confirms itself as one of the qualifying points of our programming, along with two festivals of international scope such as Donizetti Opera and Bergamo Jazz and the History Lessons series, recently born but already crowned with wide success. But Prose and Other Paths occupy a special place in the hearts of the people of Bergamo.”
Maria Grazia PanigadaMaria Grazia Panigada, Artistic Director of the Prose Season and Other Paths, gets to the heart of the presentation, but not before a premise: «The 2024|2025 Season has once again marked an audience presence that has amazed us at every curtain rise: the guest companies themselves tell us how ours is one of the most beautiful and welcoming theaters in Italy. At the end of each performance, it’s not uncommon to see evident signs of emotion on the faces of actresses and actors for the warmth received from an audience capable of leaving beautiful memories. An audience that we cultivate with passion, with particular attention to young people, to whom we dedicate specific educational projects, encouraging their presence at the theater. All this in view of a new Season that we trust will be as well-received as the past ones». «In the 2025|2026 Prose season, we will see on stage some of the fundamental texts in the history of theater, and we will encounter them to investigate how relevant and present they are today in relationships, politics, and the logic that dominates our daily lives», continues Maria Grazia Panigada, «And we could not imagine a more varied Other Paths: seven titles for seven genres ranging from puppet theater to narrative theater, from theater of civic engagement to circus-theater. Theater has always been a mirror to reality, with the ability to give different points of view, to make us enter other roles, other perspectives so that we can return to our lives enriched and, perhaps, also a little renewed».
The 2025|2026 Prose Season and Other Paths is realized with the contribution of MIC – Italian Ministry of Culture, Lombardy Region, Bergamo Chamber of Commerce, Allianz (Main Partner of the Donizetti Theater Foundation), Intesa Sanpaolo, SIAD, and a significant number of companies adhering to the Donizetti Ambassadors project that support the Foundation through Art Bonus.
Giacomo Campora, CEO of Allianz S.p.A., declares: «With the recent renewal of the multi-year partnership for another five years, Allianz confirms its support to the Donizetti Theater Foundation».
Daniele Pastore, Regional Director of Lombardy North Intesa Sanpaolo, states: «We renew our support this year to the Prose Season and Other Paths of the Donizetti Theater Foundation as it falls within the broader commitment of the bank to the territories in which it operates. We believe that art and culture are strategic and identity resources for communities, capable of triggering virtuous processes of growth also on a social, economic, and employment level».
Prose Season at the Donizetti Theater
Great actors, great directors, great texts: with its seven titles in the program, the 2025|2026 Prose Season at the Donizetti Theater promises to be marked by spectacle and depth of content.
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 at the center of a classic will be Lella Costa, who will interpret Lysistrata directed by Serena Sinigaglia: the show will arrive in Bergamo, from February 7 to 15, after its summer debut at the Greek Theater of Syracuse.
The Prose program will then feature other prestigious actors and directors. Among the latter, Sergio Rubini puts his signature on 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 a cinematic and engaging 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 Cupiello’s. A show 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, on January 15, Carrozzeria Orfeo: we left them in 2023 in the kitchen of a basement and we find them now, with We’ll Save the World Before Dawn, on a satellite in space inside a luxurious clinic specializing in the treatment of contemporary addictions. The company’s irreverent and brilliant spirit remains unchanged.
In February, Thursday the 5th morning and evening and the 6th morning, the Bergamo-born Giorgio Marchesi will reprise, with fidelity to the text that becomes actorial virtuosity, one of Pirandello’s classics: The Late Mattia Pascal.
Also in February, on the 19th, Circo Zoè will arrive at the Donizetti, an international company that has among its founders two Bergamo natives, Simone Benedetti and Diego Zanoli. In the Italian-French production Deserance, Circo Zoè explores the archetype of the journey, combining as always a very high level of acrobatic technique with a dreamlike and imaginative dramaturgical imprint.
Again at the Donizetti, on Thursday, March 5, another welcome return: that of Alessandro Bergonzoni, who with Here Come the Therefores (Fry, Blue Sun and the Story of the Young Shutter) traverses, like a tightrope walker, 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.
