Spoleto a tale of 2 cities again?

Will the Italian Festival of Two Worlds take a step toward reuniting with the Spoleto Festival USA?

The signs are definitely there.

Mayor Massimo Brunini of Spoleto, Italy, is the guest speaker at Spoleto Festival USA opening ceremonies on Friday. He is bringing 15 prominent Italians with him who represent various Spoleto business.

Eight of the Italians will be here briefly, while the other seven will stay through the weekend and have dinner with Spoleto Festival board members.

Absent from the elite group will be Francis "Chip" Menotti, artistic director of the Festival of Two Worlds.

Menotti is the son of internationally known composer Gian Carlo Menotti, the founder of both the Festival of Two Worlds (1958) and the Spoleto Festival USA (1977). The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer selected Charleston for a U.S. performing arts festival, saying he considered it to be "a sister festival to the Festival of Two Worlds."

There was an acrimonious split between the Menottis and the Charleston festival in 1993 when Gian Carlo abruptly left the Spoleto Festival USA in financial and emotional tatters with a $900,000 debt.

When Menotti announced his departure from the festival, Spoleto board members were stunned, although then-board Chairman Homer C. Burrous said that because Menotti was 82, the board realized he would not lead the festival for too many more years.

In his resignation statement, Menotti said the main reason he was leaving was "because of the overt hostility festival organizers have shown to me."

Another indication of his impending departure was that Menotti had fired Spoleto Festival General Director Nigel Redden in August 1991, threatening to leave himself if Redden didn't go.

This was surprising because Redden had been a college intern for five summers at the Italian festival, and had been handpicked by Menotti in 1986 for his position at the Spoleto Festival USA. Redden was rehired by the board in 1995.

Earlier in the year, Menotti had made it public that he disapproved of some of the visual arts components Redden brought to the festival.

Meanwhile, Francis Menotti ran up bills for tennis lessons for his children and other nonfestival expenses. He also insisted on being housed part of the time in a lavish suite at the newly built Charleston Place.

"Chip got up in a board meeting, and he and Gian Carlo absolutely lambasted everybody," said Spoleto Chairman Emeritus Charles Way. "It was not an amicable parting in any way."

The acrimony was so great that Menotti threatened to take the name Spoleto Festival USA with him, but Charleston Mayor Joe Riley quashed that idea by pointing out that Menotti owned neither the festival nor the trademark name.

"It's hard to predict what will happen this weekend," said Eric Friberg, chairman of the Spoleto Festival USA board.

Riley, who has visited with Brunini in Italy several times, said he is delighted the mayor and the others are coming. "I don't foresee the two festivals getting back together as far as any joint funding is concerned," Riley said. "However, I think steps could be taken for cooperative arrangements artistically. And if Chip Menotti wants to come, that's fine with me."

Riley said it would be beneficial for the Spoleto Festival Orchestra musicians to travel on to the Italian festival after performing here, and that the same arrangements could be made regarding some of the chamber music musicians and the Westminster Choir, an arrangement that benefited both festivals before the split. In turn, if an opera were to be performed by the Festival of Two Worlds, it could be performed in Charleston the following year with Spoleto Festival USA borrowing the sets and costumes. The move could save money for both festivals.

About 70 percent of the funding for the Festival of Two Worlds comes from the Italian government, according to Way.

Redden made it clear that Brunini was invited to be the main speaker at the 2007 festival nearly a year before Gian Carlo Menotti died in February at age 95.

"Mayor Brunini has been extremely friendly to our board members who have visited Spoleto, Italy," Redden said. "In the spring of 2006 he sent the festival a gift of a small statue that is a replica of one in the town of Spoleto. It now graces the Mary Ramsay Secret Courtyard at the festival headquarters."

Redden said that among those accompanying Mayor Brunini will be Gilberto Stella, chairman of the Festival of Two Worlds Foundation; Giovanni Antonini, president of Banca Popolare di Spoleto, a major bank in Spoleto; Filippo Tomassoni, president of the Spoleto Hotel Association; and Massimo Clementini, the manager of the Spoleto Hotel Association.

Friberg said eight of the visitors will be guests at the Carolina Yacht Club for a luncheon Friday, and that the remaining seven Italians, along with some Spoleto board members, will be his guests for dinner on Saturday.

The 17-day comprehensive performing arts festival starts Friday and will feature 120 performances including opera, dance, theater, classical music and jazz through June 10.

Reach Dottie Ashley at 937-5704 or dashley@postandcourier.com.