EFA Monthly Digest May 2026
Each month Simon Mundy highlights what is happening across the European Festivals Association (EFA)’s network, offering a glimpse of the many ways our community is active across Europe and beyond.
Theatertreffen - Berliner Festspiele
1-17 May, Berlin, Germany
Let's start this month's digest with some inventive theatre festivals. As part of the Berlinerfestspiele portfolio, Theatertreffen (1 – 17 May) has invited ten playwrights to nominate productions from new voices that they feel challenge boundaries, whether ethical or theatrical. The writers are at different stages of their careers: some just out of university, others seen in initial staged readings. The chosen works cover a wide variety of styles, from discursive experiment, a costume drama, a musical performed naked, to two performance marathons.
Theatre World Brno
12 – 24 May, Brno, Czechia
Theatre World Brno (12 – 24 May) sensibly subtitles several of its productions, whether local or visiting, in English to help those who might otherwise feel linguistically challenged. For many of the shows there are also discussions after the performance. The programme range is immense, from children's shows, often using puppetry for which this part of central Europe is famous, to full scale plays at the National Theatre - Brno being the capital of the Moravian half of the Czech Republic - and many studio and experimental spaces.
International Theatre Festival Kontakt
29 May - 5 June, Toruń, Poland
In Poland, the city of Torun hosts Kontakt, the country's oldest international theatre festival for eight days (29 May – 5 June). Much of the festival features works in competition, including one from Kyiv exploring Caligula's relationship with his sister, from Warsaw Antigone in Molenbeek, and from Berlin Ophelia's Got Talent. The guest artist, performing and giving a public talk is the splendid (and often splendidly creepy) John Malkovitch.
Mittelyoung Festival
14 – 17 May, Cividale del Friuli, Italy
Another short showcase is the Mittelyoung Festival in Cividale del Friuli (14 – 17 May). This presents performances by those under 30 in dance, circus, theatre and experimental music with a prize at the end. The nine finalists have been selected from 238 entries from 28 countries.
De Singel
6 - 13 May, Antwerp, Belgium
De Singel in Antwerp is a venue that hosts a large number of in house festivals. There are two this month, both looking at the experimental side of the arts. 4DSound (6 – 9 May) explores the idea of spatial music, combing live performances with sculptural lighting design. Shifting Sounds (7 – 13 May) looks at the interdisciplinary impulses driving contemporary music this century in performance, music theatre and film.
Spring Performing Arts Festival
14 – 23 May, Utrecht, the Netherlands
In Utrecht, the Spring Performing Arts Festival (14 – 23 May) has the title Extended Bodies/Expanded Minds. It looks as though it will live up to both. In the extensive mix there's a club night with burlesque and drag, a seven and a half hour live video game, an immersive dance and AI session in which the audience move around a giant LED cube, and a bar where migrant artists serve 'signature' cocktails while telling their stories. There is irony in that last event; the indulgence of cocktails contrasted with the experience of those who have felt the need to flee their countries.
Kharkiv Music Fest 2026
24 April – 21 May, Kharkiv, Ukraine
One festival shows the other side – the courage of those who respond to conflict by offering music against bombs. Kharkiv, close to the eastern border of Ukraine, is now facing its fourth year of being in the forefront of Russia's war. From 24 April – 21 May events will be held across the city in defiance of the war, with the theme A Story About The Future. It opens with Maksym Husak conducting the National Presidential Orchestra in Mahler's First Symphony and a series of chamber music concerts follow, as well as art therapy sessions. The circumstances are underlined by the sentence, “all concerts will take place in safe locations. Minor programme changes are possible due to the security situation”.
Prague Spring Festival
7 May – 3 June, Prague, Czechia
Perhaps some hope can be offered to Kharkiv offering music in turbulent times by the fact that this month sees the 80th anniversary of the Prague Spring Festival – like Edinburgh's festival that started a year later, a determined attempt to use classical music to look to the future after war. Even when the Iron Curtain severed Europe again, the Prague Spring valued its sense of international connection. This year's festival (7 May – 3 June) has kept its traditional balance between tradition and new work. The tradition is that the festival always begins with Smetana's four part depiction of My Country (Ma Vlast). Normally this is the prerogative of the Czech Philharmonic but this year the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra celebrates its centenary, so it has the honour. The new work includes Ondrej Adamek's Where Are You?, sung by the country's greatest living mezzo-soprano, Magdalena Kozena and conducted by her husband, Sir Simon Rattle. The composer in residence is Unsuk Chin, from South Korea, and the famously barefoot violinist, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, plays the last work by Lubos Fiser, his Second Violin Concerto, written in 1997, two years before he died. The wonderful French lutenist, Thomas Dunfield's recital of music commemorating 400 years since the death of John Dowland has proved so popular he is playing it twice in one day (24 May).
Ravenna Festival
1 May - 11 July, Italy
Ravenna Festival is a year-round operation these days but in May (1 – 24) it has a self contained festival marking Ravenna in Fiore (Ravenna in Bloom). The music is mostly for small ensembles and takes place in some amazing outdoor locations in the surrounding area. Among them there's the Forest of Montebello, Raniero Castle in Faenza, the open air arena in Cotignola and the garden of the castle on the rock at Bertinoro. More on the main indoor Ravenna Festival in the next edition of this digest.
Festival de Saint-Denis
28 May - 23 June, Paris, France
Finally this month we move to the outskirts of Paris and the basilica of its patron saint, St. Denis. The church was the resting place of French monarchs from the ten century onwards and the present building was one of the first Gothic structures ever built. The music festival there has been running since 1969. This year (28 May – 23 June) the main church hosts a formidable line-up of concerts, with music from the Rennaisance to Wagner, while chamber and children's concerts take place in the music pavilion of the nearby House of the Legion d'Honneur.