Bellini International Context 2026

From 15 September to 4 October 2026, the Bellini International Context returns, the festival dedicated to Vincenzo Bellini and directly promoted by the Sicilian Region through the Department of Tourism, Sport and Entertainment.

Now in its sixth edition, the festival features more than thirty events, mainly in Catania, with additional appointments in Palermo, Messina and Agrigento.

The programme spans opera, classical and jazz concerts, crossovers between theatre and music, world premieres, musicological meetings and events spread across the territory, confirming the festival’s multidisciplinary nature and its connection with Sicily’s musical and cultural heritage. The 2026 edition involves more than 1,500 artists and is developed through a network of cultural and musical institutions across the island.

This year’s theme leads to Paris in 1835, one of the main centres of European culture at the time and the city where Bellini achieved international recognition. At the heart of the programme is I Puritani, the Catania-born composer’s final opera, presented in a new production by the Teatro Massimo Bellini. The 2026 programme also places Bellini in dialogue with some of the figures who shaped that artistic season, including Rossini, Donizetti, Wagner, Liszt and Chopin.

Alongside the new production of I Puritani, the programme brings together conductors, opera singers, pianists, directors and actors of national and international standing, with performances and projects designed to highlight the cosmopolitan dimension of Bellini’s work and its dialogue with other art forms.

The 2026 edition thus restores Bellini to the European and cosmopolitan context in which his art matured, placing his repertoire in dialogue with other leading figures and languages of the 19th-century musical scene.