Do you feel like listening to some Gospel on New Year’s Eve? Not watching a theatre show during the holidays seems a bit too hard for you? Or would you like going off the beaten track for an alternative dinner and an unforgettable experience in Venice?
After the Christmas parties and events, the holidays in the city are made for relaxation, music and culture. Who loves the sweet life even in winter, can look for something unique in the unexpected Venice Islands.
Here’s what to do in Venice the days between 2018 and 2019 to kick off the New Year to a good start. From the Venezia da Vivere family: we wish you happy holidays, happy New Year and a series of great experiences.
1 – Music in Piazza San Marco on December 29th and 30th
Whether you go out to wish happy Christmas to your friends or for an aperitif after the Christmas shopping, or to go the cinema, or for the Christmas Eve’s concert in the Basilica, during the holidays Piazza San Marco becomes the hub of the city life. Saturday 29th and Sunday December 30th, the Associazione Piazza San Marco offers two overwhelming concerts including gospel, rhythm and blues and a repertoire of musicals’ songs. After the concerts you will find us at Caffè Lavena celebrating with a Christmas toast.
Saturday, December 29th from 6pm, the show is with the biggest choir in Italy: the Big Vocal Orchestra conducted by Marco Toso Borella.
Sunday, December 30th always from 6pm, it is the time of the fun and beautiful Vocal Skyline.
The concerts are free.
2 – The light of Venice in Chiaro, until 13th January 2019
A journey in the light of the lagoon with views and scenes of everyday life. It is a bright, lively and colourful Venice the one that you can see at the exhibition dedicated to the nineteenth and twentieth century’s painters. Favretto, Milesi, Nono, Tito and Lancerotto re-interpret perspective in painting and represent that vital season of renewal of the pictorial language that made them go beyond their academic studies.
The exhibition also unveils one of the city’s hidden gems: Palazzo Querini in Calle Lunga San Barnaba in Dorsoduro, an increasingly vital district thanks to Ve.Nice Stuff and the Do.Ve Dorsoduro Venezia association.
Venezia in Chiaro. Dialogues and silences in painting between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
Palazzo Querini
Calle Lunga San Barnaba, Dorsoduro 2691
Until 13th January 2019
Free admission, open from Wednesday to Sunday 11am – 6 pm
3 -Winter and the oysters at Venissa
Winter in the islands and oysters in Venissa. Five, four, three, two, one … Happy 2019! Nothing is more magical than doing the New Years’ countdown on one of the Lagoon islands. Especially in Venissa, where a lucky few waited for 2019 with music, surprises and champagne and the resident chef Chiara Pavan’s menu.
What we like about Venissa, which is not only the name of the local wine, but also a vineyard, a restaurant and a resort on the island of Mazzorbo (connected by a bridge to the famous Burano), is that you can be in the city of Venice and at the same time experience nature: it is an island within an island, a timeless place where everyone knows everyone, where you can stroll in the moonlight in the absolute quiet and wake up with the birds singing, experience the culture and beauty of Venice and the peace of an ancient vineyard in the lagoon.
Venissa is also the Italian Embassy of the Brittany Oyster Confraternity because many centuries ago the ancient Venetians were the ones who brought the fishing and oyster culture to Brittany. The Confrérie de la Huître de Bretagne has found in Venissa the link with its past: in fact, at Mazzorbo, some small beaches of fossil oysters are still visible today at low tide.
For this significant role Venissa periodically organizes La Cena delle Ostriche, with tastings and a menu based on oysters created by the Venissa’s Chefs. It is also possible to make a request to enter the Confraternity and become a Knight of Brittany Oyster during the ceremony that takes place during this evening, with a solemn and choreographic rite that originates from the Middle Ages.
The next Brethren’s Oyster Brothers’ dinner will be on 9th February 2019.
You can book the dinner, a room or an experience here: venissaosteria.dinesuperb.com/reserve/experience
Venissa estate
Fondamenta di Santa Caterina, Island of Mazzorbo
experience@venissa.it
Tel. +39 041 5272281
To get to Venissa, Burano and Mazzorbo from Fondamente Nove
35 mins by waterboat (line 12) or 20 mins water taxi
To get to Venissa, Burano and Mazzorbo from San Marco
1 hr by waterboat (line 12) or 35 mins by water taxi
Photos: the Burano canal is by Lorenzo Cinotti. The laid table is by Venissa and Dave Krugman. On the article cover the photo is by Dave Krugman in the vineyard of Venissa; at the end of the article Lorenzo Cinotti @celestalis and Ekaterina Mishchenkova @katia_mi toast was photographed by Hulya Ozkurt.
4 – Life on the water. The trades of the Native Venice in the photographs of Maurizio Rossi
It is still the light of the lagoon landscape, the reflections and the daily life of the fishermen and artisans of the island of Burano that tell with poetry that there is life in Venice. Until 6th January, the Venissa estate in Mazzorbo hosts the trades of the Venezia Nativa, a photographic exhibition by Maurizio Rossi, a photographer from Burano. With his face burned by the sun and the sea salt, clear eyes like his souls, Maurizio, can also ask to take you to a boat ride so to have the chance to know him better. He will take you to discover the lagoon and its slow rhythm, including the photographs and stories of the sea.
The trades of the Native Venice
Venissa estate
Fondamenta Santa Caterina, 3
Island of Mazzorbo, Venice
The photos are all by Maurizio Rossi
5 -The grandeur of Venice in the Monumental Halls of the Marciana Library in San Marco
Sunday, January 6th, 2019 you can visit for free the majestic Monumental Halls of the Marciana National Library and the Archaeological Museum of Piazza San Marco, an excellent opportunity to visit the exhibition The Last Days of Byzantium for free. Splendour and decline of an empire, thanks to #DomenicalMuseo, a national event that offers free visits to monuments, museums, galleries, archaeological sites, parks and monumental gardens on the first Sunday of each month.
Sunday 6th January 2019 #DomenicalMuseo
Monumental Halls of the Marciana Library
10am – 5pm, last admission at 4pm
Entrance from the historical entrance of the Library: Sansoviniana Library: Piazzetta San Marco n. 13 / a
The photo of the façade is by Wolfgang Moroder; the one of the rooms has been taken from the site www.beniculturali.it.
6 -The beginning of a year of music: Vocal Skyline in Basilica dei Frari
Imagine the harmonious voices of 30 young people who fill the mystical spaces of the Basilica dei Frari singing Adeste Fideles and Kirk Franklin’s most modern gospel with Hosanna, in a show made of music, choreography, atmospheres and lights.
Accompanying the choir are the instruments coordinated by Giacomo Franzoso at the piano. The musical direction is by Marco Toso Borella, who with Cristina Pustetto also takes care of the artistic direction of this marvellous Venetian project.
Basilica dei Frari
4 pm
Free admission (subject to availability)
Info: Vocal Skyline
7 -Theater # 1: Venetian comedy and Stand-up Comedy at the Teatro a l’Avogaria
There’s nothing to do… the most irreverent comedians of the national scene still love the small Teatro a l’Avogaria di Venezia, which has produced generations of actors and directors, international artists and trained the most of us.
With an all-Venetian comedy style the theatre opens 2019 offering children and families a new episode of Bricola and Regina, with characters born from the imagination of Giorgio Bertan and Eleonora Fuser. The two Venetian actors have been entertaining us for twenty years with comic-grotesque jokes that are always in line with the popular language of the Commedia dell’Arte, and talk about universal themes, daily life and their love for Venice.
Bricola and Regina
Saturday 5th January 2019 at 9pm
Sunday 6th January 2019 at 6.30 pm
The Stand-Up Comedy de l’Avogaria is a series of events curated by Nicolò Falcone, former protagonist of the Natural Born Comedians on Sky’s Comedy Central channel; these are dedicated to a comedy without frills and censorship, often uncomfortable and irreverent, and reserved for an adult public.
Saturday 19th January 2019 at 9pm
Stand-Up Comedy: Renato Minutolo
“It is legitimate to get lost in a dark castle inhabited by tyrants and executioners, but killing the monsters would not be enough, we would have to admit that we are those monsters”. Renato Minutolo returns and brings to the Avogaria’s stage his monologue Weinstein 3D which analyzes with irony and provocation the act of sexual harassment highlighting the aspects hidden by hypocrisy.
Saturday 5 February 2019 at 21
Stand-Up Comedy: Nicolò Falcone
The host will be the Venetian Nicolò Falcone, comedian of Comedy Central IT and world champion of Monopoly. His first time on a stage was in January 2015 and he liked it so much being also able to publicly say bad things on the organisers.
Free admission for theatre members. If you want to be part of the large and varied family of the Teatro a l’Avogaria, you can pick up a membership registration form at the Theatre’s headquarters, or Monopoly it from their site and the submit it signed at the same venue during opening hours. The membership fee for the year 2019 is € 20.00. Have fun!
A l’Avogaria Theater
Dorsoduro 1607, Corte Zappa (near Campo San Sebastiano)
Information and reservations:
Mail: avogaria@gmail.com, prenotazioni@teatro-avogaria.it
Tel. +39 041 0991967 | +39 335 372889
8 – Theater # 2: the city theatre of Mattia Berto with Tireless Groggia
Saturday, January 12th at 9pm the theatre’s season performances will start at the Teatrino Groggia in Cannaregio directed by Mattia Berto, who chose the formula Tireless Theatre as a tribute to all those who make the theatrical pièce possible. The theatre season of Mpg Cultura is divided into two sections Tireless Little Ones and Tireless Adults.
Tireless Little Ones offers actors’ residences and shows for children and families, an itinerary of suggestions with the marvellous machines of Marcello Chiarenza; the choreography for the childhood by Valentina Dal Mas; the suitcase of the incantations by Pietro Piva, the creative inspiration by Pantakin from Venice; the colourful scenic intuitions by Silvia Piovan and Anna Arpini.
Tireless Adults is an evening program for an adult audience to see national companies on stage, unpublished texts of British drama, and experimentations on the classics, moments of reflection and new insights.
Saturday 12th January 2019 at 9pm
Tireless Adults: Meet me at dawn
by Zinnie Harris, translated by Monica Capuani
Directed by Silvio Peroni, a Khora.Teatro production
Thursday 17th January 2019 at 9pm
Tireless Adults: The battle of the pedals. When Gino Bartali ran and saved the Jews Dramaturgy and direction by Ketti Grunchi
La Piccionaia company
Saturday 26th January 2019 – 4pm (English)
Sunday 27th January 2019 – 3.30 pm and 5 pm (Italian)
Tireless Little: What a wonderful world
Directed by Marcello Chiarenza
Lyngo Theatre, adapted and starred by Patrick Linch
Teatrino Groggia, Cannaregio
info@mpgcultura.it
Tel. +39 329 8407362
The photos are by Mattia Berto, the black and white one is by Giorgia Chinellato.
