Every summer, the Aspendos International Opera & Ballet Festival stages performances inside the ancient Roman theatre itself — not a modern venue built to look old, but the actual 2nd-century structure, still doing the job it was built for. If your trip includes a summer date and you want a shot at catching a performance, it's worth planning around rather than discovering by accident.
Why this needs active planning, not a fixed date
Festival programming and exact dates are set and published fresh each year, and tickets for a working 1,800-year-old theatre don't stay available long once they're announced. Rather than print a specific date here that could be wrong by the time you read this, the reliable approach is: once your travel dates are firm, search for the current year's official festival programme directly and check availability against your Aspendos visit.
Visiting either way
Even outside festival dates, Aspendos is worth the trip on its own merits — see our full Aspendos guide for what to see and how to get there. If your dates do line up with a performance, treat it as a genuine bonus worth rearranging a day for, not just an add-on.
Our take
Check official festival dates before you finalise flights if seeing a performance is a priority — the theatre itself is spectacular any day of the year, but watching it used exactly as intended is a different experience entirely.