Three cultural events close Sagunt a Escena this weekend in Sagunto
Estrella Morente will close the Sagunt a Escena festival on Saturday, 22 August, at the Roman Theatre in Sagunto, after two circus shows in the Off Romà series at Casa dels Berenguer and Antigua Morería.
Three cultural events in under 48 hours, all within walking distance of each other: that is how the theatre programme of the Sagunt a Escena festival wraps up this weekend in Sagunto. The closing moment comes on Saturday, 22 August, at 10.30 pm, when flamenco singer Estrella Morente takes the stage at the Roman Theatre (an ancient open-air venue used for concerts and plays) for the last concert of this year's edition.
Born in Granada and the daughter of fellow flamenco singer Enrique Morente, she started singing as a child and has since built a career that stays rooted in flamenco tradition while remaining open to other musical styles. Over the years she has collaborated with artists far outside the flamenco world, including Icelandic singer Björk, and took part in the soundtrack of 'Volver', the film by director Pedro Almodóvar. Her first solo album, 'Mi cante y un poema', released in 2001, went on to earn platinum-record status — a strong start to a career that has kept growing ever since. Her most recent honour came in 2025, when the Spanish state awarded her the Medalla de Oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes (Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts), just months before this stop in the Camp de Morvedre district.
But the festival's send-off is not limited to that single concert. The other half of the closing weekend belongs to the Off Romà series, designed to take performing arts out of the main venue and into more everyday corners of the city, with tickets that cost less than the main stage. Under that umbrella sit two shows by Valencian companies, staged in different parts of town on Friday and Saturday.
The first show goes up this Friday, 21 August, at 8 pm, at Casa dels Berenguer (a historic house used as a cultural venue). It is 'Kossha', by El Cruce, a duo made up of Rubén Río and Nicoletta Battaglia, who mix absurd humour, live music and polished circus skills. Their reference point is old-style travelling variety shows, a format that thrived on close contact between performers and the audience watching from the front row.
The second show shares the same time slot — also 8 pm — but changes date and location: it takes place on Saturday at Antigua Morería (a historic quarter of Sagunto), with 'Juga', performed by the company La Trócola Circ. Toys and forms of entertainment from before the 1990s serve here as a way to bring different generations together and to make a wider point: that the street should still be, even for today's children, a place to meet rather than just pass through, at a time when much of children's free time is spent in front of screens.
Taken together, these three events capture how Sagunt a Escena has approached the close of its summer season: a nationally known name reserved for the big stage at the Roman Theatre, alongside work by Valencian companies spread across squares and smaller venues that offer less capacity but more closeness to the audience. The result is a festival that combines artistic ambition with the aim of reaching people who do not always buy tickets for the main venue.
For residents of Sagunto and Puerto de Sagunto (the coastal district), the weekend therefore offers three cultural options within a few blocks of each other: two more affordable circus shows and a ticketed concert that closes weeks of theatre, music and circus at the Roman Theatre. Times, prices and ticket availability — for the Morente concert and for both Off Romà shows — can be checked through the festival's official channels.
The Roman Theatre reaches this closing weekend after a summer that has already given it plenty of cultural attention, since it hosted other stage shows earlier in this same festival edition. Outside the summer calendar, the venue also regularly hosts other events, such as a classical theatre festival held every spring, which makes it one of the most consistently active cultural venues across the whole Camp de Morvedre district throughout the year.
According to El Periódico de Aquí, with additional background from Wikipedia on Estrella Morente's career.