Feste Vigiliane 2023 - 40th year

“Feste Vigiliane” denominates the festival in which Trento celebrates its patron saint St. Vigilius with games, music, entertainment and historical reenactments.

Having now become one of the most eagerly awaited events of Trentino's summer, the patron saint's festivals are ready to fill the squares and streets of the city centre once again, offering the public moments of leisure, freedom and light-heartedness.

Among the main new events of this 40th edition is undoubtedly the great return Andrea Castelli, in the role of judge of the Tribunal of Penance. He's the creator of the first editions of the Tribunal and the Tonca, and has been its historical interpreter for no less than 15 years.

However, the Trentino actor will not be the only well-known face on the programme, as the 40th edition of the Feste Vigiliane will also feature the irresistible and overwhelming comedy of Mario Cagol and Lucio Gardin.

Great attention will also be paid to the world of children with VIGILIANE KIDS, a busy calendar of events curated this year by the Haydn Education programme run by the Haydn Foundation of Bolzano and Trento, with workshops organised in collaboration with the Museo Diocesano Trentino (Tridentine Diocesan Museum), Trento Film Festival, MUSE-Science museum, METS-Trentino Ethnographic Museum of S. Michele and TSM-Accademia della montagna, AbilNova Cooperativa Sociale and Centromoda Canossa Trento, and performances featuring companies such as Teatro Quisquilie, Scuola Circolo Bolla di Sapone, Il Vagabondo e Bottega Buffa Circovacanti.

 And again new this year is a greater involvement of the spectators who, through the use of multimedia forms of communication, will have the opportunity to experience the Festival in an even more heartfelt, interactive and participatory way.

A clear example of this is the event on 15 June curated by the Diocese of Trento entitled 'The Cathedral Unveiled', which will honour and offer great visibility to the city of Trento, making it visible and 'visitable' from every corner of the planet, thanks to the new Digital Portal created for the Cathedral of St. Vigilius of Trento.

To follow, Piazza Duomo will turn off its lights to present Il tempo dell'umano-Aspettando S. Vigilio (Human Time-Awaiting St. Vigilius), event outside the programme organised by the municipality of the city. It will be a kind of vigil marked by moments of reflection and musical accompaniment, which will see its conclusion with the stroke of midnight marked by the tolling of the bells of the St Vigilius Cathedral.

In this first edition, the "prologue" to the Festival will have as its theme "time", declined as much in its human perception as in its sidereal dimension. Special guest, Sergio Bertolucci, one of the most internationally renowned physicists. Director of research and scientific computing at Cern, he amazed the international scientific community by announcing in 2012 the extraordinary discovery of the Higgs Boson (free event open to all).

It will undoubtedly be an edition of the Feste Vigiliane full of novelties, to celebrate its first forty years of history in the best possible way. In this regard, to seal this important milestone and thus give the people of Trentino a tangible sign of this anniversary, on Saturday 17 June a publication entirely dedicated to the patron saint's festivities will be presented, edited by the Fondazione Museo Storico del Trentino, inside which the most significant moments and passages of this traditional-popular festival have been collected, with images, documents and testimonies of the protagonists.

To find out the details and stay up-to-date on the news and the entire programme of this 40th edition

of the Feste Vigiliane, go to www.festevigiliane.it