Two Spoletos: Kinship rekindled
The stage was set here last year. The 2007 opening ceremony of the Spoleto Festival USA featured the mayor of Spoleto, Italy, who left no doubt how anxious officials of his country were to arrange a reunion between the American festival and its Italian counterpart. Now, this year's opening ceremony can celebrate the happy and long-awaited news that the 15-year, forced separation has finally come to an end.
In reality, collaborative efforts between the two festivals aren't expected to begin until 2009. But, according to our report, the Spoleto Festival USA's music director will go to Italy this summer to conduct the Italian premiere of a rarely performed opera.
That's the kind of artistic exchange between the two festivals that used to take place on a much larger scale. Composer Gian Carlo Menotti brought his Italian festival to Charleston in 1977 with the concept of a mutually beneficial alliance. After performing in Charleston, the staff and members of the Westminster Choir and the festival orchestra, along with chamber concert directors and musicians, would travel to Italy for the Festival of Two Worlds. The America festival was successfully cut from the pattern of its Italian counterpart, known as the world's most comprehensive arts festival. The collaboration also involved some shared productions.
But the alliance came to an abrupt end when Mr. Menotti left the American festival he founded and required the mainstays of the American festival to choose between the two. The Italian festival was the loser.
During Mr. Menotti's life there were some tentative overtures, urged on by Italian officials, to resume the relationship, but that failed to materialize. On his death last year at age 95, the American festival paid tribute to its founder with a special concert filled with remembrances and acknowledgements of the life-changing impact of his festivals on two cities that are worlds apart.
While his heir, Chip Menotti, later indicated some willingness to consider a reunion, it was his removal from the Italian festival directorship late last year that paved the way for last week's announcement that the door between the two festivals is open once again.
The extent of the new effort isn't yet clear. Spoleto Festival USA General Director Nigel Redden tells us that the current discussions with the Italian festival's new director involve collaboration on specific opera and theater productions. It will take some time, he notes, to determine what the new relationship will be. "It is something that will have to grow." This is, he adds, a different time with a different cast of characters.
But he emphasizes the importance of re-establishing the old ties. The Italian festival, he says, is "a part of our genetic makeup, a part of our DNA. Our roots are embedded in that small town in Umbria. It is enormously important. The Italian festival is as close to what we do as anything else in the world. All of a sudden, it is like finding a long-lost brother. You are just excited to see him."
While the American festival has proven in the past 15 years that it can more than stand on its own, the debt it owes to its Italian roots has never been forgotten. Indeed, even in those years of estrangement, Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr., has never failed to end his opening-day speech with a greeting in Italian. This year, that greeting will have particular significance.
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