At 5.00 pm, the construction site of the historic Teatro Duni will be transformed into a space suspended between construction and imagination. Here, scaffolding and temporary structures become an image of the city rebuilding itself, a metaphor for the Mediterranean itself: a vast construction site of water, stone, light and time.

The ceremony will open to the strains of ‘Mediterraneo’ by the Lucanian singer-songwriter Pino Mango, accompanied by a video directed by Alessandro Rak and produced by Riva Dei Ginepri Production and Mad Entertainment Spa for MaTiFF – Matera International Film Festival. A visual narrative that captures the essence of a Mediterranean that unites, preserves traces and reimagines memories into new visions.

The official ceremony will be hosted by RAI journalist Valentina Bisti. On the theatre’s scaffolding, like a vertical stage, the Matera Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Maestro Saverio Vizziello, and the Pierluigi da Palestrina Matera Polyphonic Choir will perform the National Anthem and Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, bringing the sound of live music back to this theatre for the first time after years of silence. The construction site thus becomes a metaphor for a Mediterranean in constant flux: a place of encounter, dialogue and rebirth. Architect Pietro Laureano will deliver the short lecture ‘Matera and the Mediterranean: a thousand faces of stone, water and light’. The dance performance “Anemos. The Breath of the Sea” will then take the form of a pas de deux featuring Antonella Albano, Principal Dancer at La Scala in Milan, and Mick Zeni, former Principal Dancer at La Scala in Milan, set to an original piece composed by Mattia Vlad Morleo that translates the breath of the Mediterranean into movement. A poetic tribute to the city of Tetouan is also planned: actress Eva Danino will perform ‘Ma patrie est un visage’ by the Moroccan poet Tahar Ben Jelloun in the original language.

Speakers at the ceremony will include the Deputy Prime Minister, Antonio Tajani; the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission and European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Raffaele Fitto; the Minister for Culture, Alessandro Giuli; the Minister for Institutional Reforms and Regulatory Simplification, Elisabetta Casellati; the European Commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Suica; the President of the Basilicata Region, Vito Bardi, and the Mayor of Matera, Antonio Nicoletti. Also in attendance will be the Deputy Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean, Petra Kezman, the Executive Director of the Anna Lindh Foundation, Josep Ferrè, and the Director of the Matera Basilicata 2019 Foundation, Rita Orlando.

The ceremony will be brought to a close by Eugenio Bennato, one of the leading performers and innovators of folk music from Southern Italy and the Mediterranean. His music fills the construction site: this is the moment when Matera stops preparing and begins, launching its year as the Capital of the Mediterranean, of culture and of dialogue.

The theme of the construction site extends beyond the Duni Theatre: on the façade of the Prefecture Building stands the installation ‘Sirena bicaudata’ by artist Vincenzo D’Alba, which evokes one of the most enigmatic iconographies of the ancient world, the same that watches over the front of Matera Cathedral. Meanwhile, on the scaffolding, as if in a vertical stage set, the Grande Orchestra di Fiati Città di Grottole performs, a 48-piece ensemble conducted by Maestro Filippo Carretta.

At 7 pm, from the streets of the town centre to the Sassi, Strada Evento comes to life: a widespread celebration of music, dance and performance winds its way through Via del Corso and Via Ridola, bringing balconies, windows, terraces and shop windows to life in a single shared urban performance. Thirty-six dancers from Oltredanza ASD, Breathing and Danzatori di Ginosa take over the spaces, accompanied by 38 musicians from the Onyx Jazz Club and the E.R. Duni Conservatory of Music in Matera, and by artistic performances from Stefano Siggillino and the Compagnia del Trifone. The Grande Orchestra di Fiati Città di Grottole and the Compagnia del Trifone lead the procession to Piazza San Pietro Caveoso, where the city and its history meet in the ancient silence of the Sassi. The Cantiere-evento® format by Cantiere Teatro Duni, Cantiere Prefettura and Strada Evento is organised by the Gianfranco Dioguardi Foundation / Dioguardi Lab.

The grand finale begins at 8.45 pm and takes shape from the Sasso Caveoso. The sounds of traditional instruments from southern Italy and the wider Mediterranean region – the subject of Pino Basile’s research and study – are performed live from the rocky outcrop of Monterrone (Santa Maria de Idris), mastered and blended with electronics in real time by Daniele Antezza, and transformed into algorithms that project live laser streams across the Murgia, curated by Ultravioletto, in a synaesthetic universe of colour and movement. The concept and creative direction are by Studio Antani.

To bring the night to a close, in a crescendo of wonder and amazement, the sky above the Murgia Materana Park transforms into a dynamic canvas animated by hundreds of drones that give life to complex and majestic luminous structures, directed by Nicola Di Meo – Drone & Lights Show Designer.

The show will be visible from Via Madonna delle Virtù, Porta Pistola and the main vantage points of the Sassi in the historic centre of Matera. The Matera Basilicata 2019 Foundation will broadcast the grand finale live on its YouTube channel; the official ceremony at 5.00 pm can also be watched in full via the big screen in Piazza Vittorio Veneto. TGR Basilicata will broadcast the institutional ceremony live on television from 5.30 pm to 6.00 pm, followed by a live stream on its website from 6.15 pm to 7.15 pm, with in-depth coverage during the various news bulletins. TRM network will cover the entire opening day with non-stop live TV and streaming from 2.00 pm until the end of the evening, on the TRM h24 channel.