Velia Teatro Festival (Montecorice Summer)

Ancient theatre returns to the village of Ortodonico

The Velia Teatro Festival stops every summer in Ortodonico, a hillside hamlet in the Municipality of Montecorice, in the province of Salerno, in the heart of the Cilento region and Campania. The evenings take place outdoors in Piazza Tommaso Amoresano, in the historic center of the village, and are gathered under the title Montecorice d'Estate (Montecorice Summer): the organizers describe it as "our Symposium under the stars, where words become an encounter and the soul recognizes itself." In 2026, the municipality hosts the festival for the third consecutive year.

A lectio brevis before every show

The format is the festival's historic one, born near the acropolis of Elea-Velia and reaching its twenty-ninth edition in 2026: each performance is preceded by a lectio brevis entrusted to a university professor or a nationally renowned scholar. Those attending the show thus receive the keys to interpreting the text—the historical context, the myth, the language—before seeing it come to life on stage. It is a way to make ancient tragedy and comedy accessible even to those who do not attend them regularly, without sacrificing scientific rigor. The result is never an academic lecture: the scholar's words last only a few minutes and serve to spark curiosity, then it is up to the actors.

The 2026 program in Montecorice

The 29th edition brings two events to Ortodonico, on Tuesday August 4th and Friday August 7th, 2026:

• August 4th — lectio brevis «No one has ever seen Socrates drunk» by Massimo Adinolfi, Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Naples Federico II, followed by Plato, Symposium, directed and performed by Christian Poggioni, with original music by Irina Solinas, costumes by Micaela Sollecito, and masks by Zorba Officine Creative.
• August 7th — lectio brevis «The Iliad, stories of gods and heroes» by Luigi Vecchio, Professor of Greek History at the University of Salerno, followed by Homer, Iliad in the solo voice version by Gianluigi Tosto.

Two evenings, two different registers: Plato's philosophical banquet, where love is discussed until dawn, and the incandescent material of Homeric epic, the wrath of Achilles and the fate of Hector, rendered by a single actor on stage.

A traveling festival among the sites of Magna Graecia

The two dates in Montecorice are part of a much broader program. From July 29th to September 19th, 2026, the VeliaTeatro Festival, organized by the association Cilento Arte ETS, travels through Cilento, Irpinia, and the Alto Casertano, touching archaeological areas, museums, castles, and historic villages:

• the Zenone Arena of the Alario Foundation in Marina di Ascea, next to the acropolis of Elea-Velia, the main venue of the program;
• the Antiquarium of Palinuro and the Castello Talamo Atenolfi of Castelnuovo Cilento;
• the villages of Ortodonico in Montecorice and Rodio in Pisciotta;
• the archaeological park of Roccagloriosa, the theatrical cavea of Venticano (Avellino), and the temple-theatre of Monte San Nicola in Pietravairano (Caserta).

The 2026 program features Homer, Virgil, Euripides, Aristophanes, Menander, and Plato, with the national premiere of The Last Journey, a scenic version of Giovanni Pascoli's poem dedicated to Ulysses, entrusted to Gianluigi Tosto.

Ortodonico, the village hosting the festival

Ortodonico is no ordinary backdrop. Its name appears in manuscripts from the early years after the year 1000, and the area preserves traces of Bronze Age and Roman habitation; the village was a municipal seat until 1927, when the capital moved to Montecorice. The historic center has remained substantially intact, with two noble palaces, a medieval tower, and the church of Sant'Antonio Abate with its characteristic bell gable. In the village, there is also a museum of peasant civilization and, since 2014, a violin-making workshop dedicated to the De Luccia masters. At about 240 meters above sea level, the square overlooks the hills of Cilento and, on August evenings, enjoys a breeze that the coast does not know.

Why it's worth the trip

Attending an evening of VeliaTeatro in Montecorice means seeing Greek and Latin theatre where it truly has roots: a few kilometers from Elea-Velia, the city of Parmenides and Zeno, in a landscape that is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The audience sits in the square: what matters is the text, the voice of the performers, and the live music. For those spending their holidays on the Cilento coast, it is the perfect evening to head up into the hills and discover the other side of the Municipality of Montecorice.