What to do in Naples in January 2026: events, exhibitions and more

After spending New Year's Eve in Piazza del Plebiscito, on the Caracciolo seafront, at Castel dell'Ovo, or in Parco Virgiliano, what to do in Naples in January 2026? The first month of the new year offers exhibitions and events not to be missed, including concerts, theater performances, cult films, ballets, and art. There is something for everyone: you can find everything worth seeing on the stages and in the exhibition spaces of Naples here.

We provide you with a well-thought-out guide that allows you to note down the best events in your diary, selected from numerous appointments and included in a carefully compiled list spread throughout the month. The calendar is very full: to avoid being caught unprepared, just save the dates and locations and remember that for some events it is better to buy tickets in advance.

From major Italian and international concerts to art exhibitions, theater, dance, and cinema, Naples offers a kaleidoscope of experiences in the first month of 2026. This article lists 10 things to do in the city in January, discovering a nightlife that is more lively and welcoming than ever, despite the still cold air and rainy weather.

If you want to enjoy unforgettable nights of culture and entertainment, don't waste any more time. Naples is a city where there is something to see and hear every day and where you may even have to choose between discovering something new or sticking with the tried and tested. Here are all the events, exhibitions, live performances, and unmissable appointments that are right for you.

The meeting between the Iranian pianist and the Italian flutist is the grand finale of Sacro Sud, the festival dedicated to traditions and popular, sacred, and devotional music conceived and produced by Black Tarantella and directed by Enzo Avitabile. Starting on December 13, the event has touched some of the most evocative churches in Naples, from the center to the suburbs. After performances by Carlos and Curro Piñana, Avitabile, the Balanescu Quartet, and Ernst Reijseger, it is now the turn of the chamber duo with their contrapuntal interplay, the perfect embodiment of musical interaction.

Born in Tehran in 1979, Bahrami is one of the greatest living interpreters of Bach and has recorded the German composer's concertos with Riccardo Chailly. Born in 1959, Mercelli boasts important dedications and collaborations with composers of the caliber of Penderecki, Gubaidulina, Glass, Nyman, Morricone, Bacalov, Piovani, and Gabriel Prokofiev. The union of these two masters has resulted in a special program of music without borders. Admission to the show is free, but reservations must be made on the Eventbrite platform of the Municipality of Naples - Culture. Reservations open seven days before the concert and each user can reserve up to a maximum of two tickets.

January 5, Chiesa di Santa Maria Donnaregina Nuova

Voice of the Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, Maria Mazzotta went solo a few years ago, first pairing up with Albanian cellist Redi Hasa and then debuting as a solo artist with Amoreamaro. Her second album, Onde, is one of the best Italian records of 2024: a surprising, original, and intelligent blend of traditional music from Salento and the Mediterranean and edgy rock sounds, with tributes to Roberto De Simone and expansions into the desert blues of the Tuareg thanks to the collaboration with the prodigious nomadic guitarist Bombino.

Since 2020, Maria Mazzotta has never stopped and has played live in over two hundred concerts in more than twenty-five countries across Europe, South America, and Asia. She is accompanied by Cristiano Della Monica on drums and electronic effects and Ernesto Nobili on electric and baritone guitars. The early 2026 tour kicks off in Naples (tickets cost €10) before heading to the US: the singer will be at Lincoln Center in New York for Global Fest, Manny's Live Performance Space in State College, Pennsylvania, Drom Taberna in Toronto, and the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis.

January 6, Auditorium Novecento

One of O'Neill's most complex and challenging plays returns to the stage with Davide Livermore's imaginative direction, his first encounter with the American playwright's work. The new translation and adaptation are by scholar Margherita Rubino. In an evocative setting, designed as a distorted mirror of the human mind and brought to life by Aldo Mantovani's lighting and Gianluca Falaschi's costumes, the show is “a fascinating and disturbing journey between archetypal myth and modern psychoanalysis, between bourgeois drama and classical tragedy.”

In addition to O'Neill and one of the absolute masterpieces of 20th-century drama, Livermore also pays homage to the famous production by the Teatro Stabile di Genova directed by Luca Ronconi in 1997. In this new interpretation, the cast includes Paolo Pierobon in the role of Ezra Mannon (Agamemnon), Elisabetta Pozzi as Christine Mannon (Clytemnestra), Linda Gennari as Lavinia, Marco Foschi as Orin Mannon, and Aldo Ottobrino as Adam Brant, Christine's lover. Between classical myth and 20th-century psychoanalysis, the plot is still very modern, while “the twisted psyche of the protagonists is entirely contemporary, as compelling as a noir that leaves you breathless,” as Rubino writes in the production notes.

January 14-18, Teatro Mercadante

The Shazar Gallery is hosting a double solo exhibition by the Greek sculptor and Polish photographer, curated by Massimiliano Maglione. Born in 1994, Dimitris Kontodimos lives and works in Athens and is holding his first solo exhibition in Italy. Born in Warsaw in 1989, Gabriel Orlowski is one of Poland's most important young artists and is holding his second solo exhibition in the gallery on Via Scura. Maglione explains that the works of the two artists depict the contemporary city “as an archive of memories and a machine of consumption, an organism that accumulates ruins while producing itself, incessantly renewing its image while consuming its substance.”

Kontodimos' sculptures simulate artificial paths through which consumer culture insinuates itself, using “anonymous objects of urban civilization, turning them into contemporary ruins, fictitious artifacts that undermine trust in memory as an instrument of truth.” Orlowski's photographs, on the other hand, give substance to ruins no longer as “memories of what has ended,” but in the “form of the present that is being consumed, an expanse of structures, means, and people that continue to move even though they feel like relics, consequences of consumerist logic.”

Until January 17, Shazar Gallery

The Roman artist is touring Italy in early 2026 and is stopping off in Naples to continue promoting Futuri possibili, his latest album, which many critics have included in their usual rankings of the best Italian albums of 2025. Born out of a love affair that ended, the work is an intimate and melancholic journey that boasts important collaborations (Giorgio Poi, Coez, Fulminacci, Ketama126, Ele A) and some songs that are already cult favorites for fans, such as the title track, Due estranei, Bella mossa, and Nottetempo.

On his third solo project, Federico Bertollini (his real name) made an album “without thinking too much about it,” as he said in an interview with Rolling Stone, but with thirteen songs united by "a common thread, which is the emotional roller coaster you experience after a major breakup, so there are also some tracks that may contradict each other a little," as he explained in another interview with Billboard. Ticket price: €30.

January 17, Teatro Palapartenope

The great tradition of Russian ballet returns with the Russian Classical Ballet's masterpiece inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann's famous fairy tale, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The immortal composition by the brilliant Pyotr Tchaikovsky is the unforgettable adventure of little Clara and her wooden soldier who comes to life to fight against an army of mice and their evil seven-headed king. This adaptation of the Christmas dream, featuring animation, evil creatures, and an unlikely prince hero, is brought to the stage under the artistic direction of Evgeniya Bespalova and Denis Karakashev.

The cast consists of dancers who graduated from the most prestigious Russian choreographic schools in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, and Perm. The choreography is the historic work of Marius Petipa, the “father” of classical ballet. The costumes are by Elik Melikov, the set design by Evgeny Gurenko, and the direction by Elik Melikov. Accompanied by Tchaikovsky's magical melodies, from the overture to the waltz of the flowers and the waltz of the snowflakes that closes the first act, it is a riot of fantasy and romance to start the new year in the best possible way. Tickets from €32.

January 18, Teatro Palapartenope

Starting last May, Lucky Red and the Cineteca di Bologna brought The Big Dreamer series to the big screens, featuring nine masterpieces by David Lynch and other special content including short films, documentaries, and interviews dedicated to one of the most original, beloved, and admired directors in the history of cinema, who passed away at the age of 78 on January 16, 2025. Exactly one year after his death, the cycle closes with the return to the screen of his last feature, Inland Empire, which also marks the 20th anniversary of its theatrical release.

Released in 2006, five years after the success of Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire is the most ambitious, intricate, and longest film of Lynch's career: 172 minutes of disturbing audiovisual experimentation. “Even in the face of the darkest worlds, the most irrational threats, the most gruesome violence, the universe renamed Lynchtown has become familiar to us,” wrote critic and professor Roy Menarini in the notes accompanying The Big Dreamer. “We love living there, returning there, testing ourselves there every time. And it is no coincidence that the sudden news of the American director's death sparked one of the most sincere and unanimous waves of affection ever seen for an artist: clearly, the pleasure we derive from his distorted and ingenious stories has always been dictated by artistic integrity and creative transparency.”

January 19-21, Cinema Metropolitan

Vesuviano is the stage name of Carmine Lauretta, a singer born in Cercola in 1994 and raised in the suburbs of Giugliano. Having become a phenomenon on Spotify, he has a truly unique background: he is a doctor who has turned to music and a big fan of One Piece, the manga and anime series by Eiichirō Oda, which features heavily in his work, while his shows are a mix of concert, stand-up, and circus. At the end of 2025, he released the concept album Arcana XXIII (Vol. 1), in which the pirate of Neapolitan music constructs a majestic hymn to freedom.

Accompanied by Elisa Benetti, Alessandro Morlando, and his brothers Pietro and Vincenzo Lauretta, Vesuviano welcomes the audience to what he calls ‘a real frenzy:’ a show of popular songs, rap and R&B, visual art, and illustrations inspired by tarot cards. “I want Vesuviano to be the sum of everything I've done,” he said in an interview with Il Riformista. “I just want to do what comes naturally to me, without thinking too much about it beforehand. It's difficult for me to find my way to the next piece, because it's always a journey, a long search for the solution. I definitely don't want to lose anything I've done”. Tickets start at €25.

January 23, Teatro Palapartenope

Opened on October 31, the exhibition dedicated to principe Antonio de Curtis celebrates the deep bond between the actor and his city. The occasion is special: the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of Neapolis, one of the oldest cities in Europe. Organized by C.O.R. Creare Organizzare Realizzare and curated by Alessandro Nicosia and Marino Niola with the participation of Totò's heirs, the exhibition is divided into thematic sections that span the artist's life and career: his origins, the Rione Sanità district, the beauty of Naples, theater, cinema, poetry, songs, testimonials, and his city's farewell.

When he died on April 15, 1967, at the age of 69, Totò was celebrated with three funerals: one in Rome, the second in Naples in the Church of Carmine Maggiore, and the third in the Rione Sanità. The one in his neighborhood was a sea of people, direct testimony to how much he was loved by the public. But the prince of laughter is still remembered today with tributes scattered throughout the city, with murals in alleys and squares and bronze statues in neighborhoods, the most famous of which is in Vomero. The Neapolitan exhibition brings together original documents, artifacts, memorabilia, photographs, films, costumes, installations, scenographic reconstructions, posters, playbills, and newspapers, and is the first stage of a project that will soon continue in New York. Full price tickets cost €10.

Until January 25, Sala Belvedere, Royal Palace of Naples

Inspired by the brutal murder of Luca Varani, the 23-year-old Roman tortured and killed in an apartment in the eastern part of the capital during a party involving sex, alcohol, and drugs, Nicola Lagioia's fifth novel won the Bottari Lattes Grinzane International Prize, the Leogrande Prize, and the Naples Prize in 2021. Six years after its publication, the book has been turned into a play by the Elsinor theater company, directed by Ivonne Capece “with real and semi-holographic actors, about parent-child relationships, beauty, and violence, which deeply shocks and raises questions: how much do we not know about the lives of those we love? Why do we always say ‘Please, don't let it happen to me’ and never ‘Please, don't let me be the one to do it’”?

Lagioia's narrative investigation is transformed into a tense drama, “a hybrid between story and confession,” where “the theater becomes the space in which to look at the unspeakable.” “It is not the chronicle of a crime, but the reflection of an inner autopsy, in which the artist exposes himself to the emotional vortex that binds him to his city and his own impulse to tell stories. Rome, with its chaos, indifference, and magnificence, is not a backdrop but a force that shapes pain and writing,” according to the production notes. Tickets range from €15 to €30, but the show is not suitable for children under 16.

From January 27, Teatro Bellini