The name Spoleto may conjure visions of medieval mountaintop music-making across the sea in Italy, but for those in the know on this side of the Atlantic, Spoleto is invariably the place to be for Memorial Day weekend. Established twenty-seven years ago in the Umbrian town of Spoleto, and then again nine years ago here by composer/director/impresario Gian Carlo Menotti, the Festival of Two Worlds is set in charming Charleston, South Carolina, easily among the most beautiful and atmospheric of American cities.
For nearly three weeks in late May and early June, the global arts elite gather to feast on she crab soup and avocado dip out on the lawns of such baronial plantations as Drayton Hall, the National Trust's Palladian Mansion, and on the breezy piazzas of those grand old palazzi up and down the Battery, Charleston's oceanfront boulevard just swaying with palmettos. Yes, every spring swarms of culture vultures descend upon the namesake town of the Roaring Twenties' favorite dance. As a world-class aesthetic fest, Spoleto has become something of an annual ritual for the ultracultivated, whose appetite for lavish opera productions, exquisite chamber music concerts, avant-garde plays, experimental dance troupes, and art exhibitions is satiated in elegant Georgian theaters and historic cathedrals.
Beyond the richness of the performing and visual arts programming, however, the ultimate point of it all is to partake of that delicious diversion widely known as "southern hospitality." It might well be said that Charleston, with its singular claim to blue-blood lineage and its dazzling wealth of architectural treasures, is simply the last word in southern living, the closest we can still come to the grandeur of the antebellum lifestyle. And when the dowager empresses of "The Holy City," as Charleston is known to its residents, roll out their red carpets, you can be sure they are of crimson velvet, with enough opulence to make you wonder if the South isn't rising again.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Spoleto Festival, as well as the seventy-fifth birthday of artistic director Menotti, who will celebrate the event on July 7 in Spoleto, Italy, during that segment of the Festival of Two Worlds. Opening on May 23, and running through June 8, the Charleston portion will undoubtedly be the most extensive edition yet, offering two full-scale opera productions, eight dance troupes, numerous orchestral and chamber music concerts and recitals, the revival of a significant modern play, and even a circus imported from Italy and named for its star, an elephant. All of it is overseen by Romanian-born music director Christian Badea and his large staff.
The Saint of Bleecker Street, for which Menotti won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for musical composition, will form the centerpiece of the festival's programming as the opening night presentation in the spacious Gaillard Municipal Auditorium. Following that event, to be staged by Menotti, conducted by Christian Badea, and designed by Zack Brown, the assembled patrons will proceed to the magnificent Society Hall for a black-tie champagne ball. Last year's opening night guests included screen star Michael York, James Bond set designer Ken Adam, film director Bruce Beresford, and socialite/philanthropist Virginia Kress, among many others who can be expected to return this May. The subsequent opera production will comprise two one-act stagings of Igor Stravinsky's Renard, to be directed by vanguard dance figure David Gordon, and Raffaello de Banfield's Lord Byron's Love Letter,
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