Time to tell it like it was

Mayor Joe Riley offered a moving tribute to pianist and Spoleto Festival USA artistic director for chamber music Charles Wadsworth the other night.

At the start of a gala tribute, on Sunday night at Memminger Auditorium, Riley credited Wadsworth's musicianship, his generosity, "his ability to make us laugh, make us happy."

He went on to claim that it was only Wadsworth's continued participation after composer and founder Gian Carlo Menotti's annual resignation was finally accepted in 1993 that "saved" the festival.

And there, with all due respect to Riley and Wadsworth, I disagree.

I sometimes wonder whether Charleston recognizes what an extraordinary endeavor this festival has become, far beyond the power of one person to save or destroy.

Menotti, having lent his name to the creation of Spoleto in 1977, did his best to ruin it every summer during his last years here.

It is high time to acknowledge that he was a terrific drain on the festival as far back as 20 years ago — that, indeed, he did as much harm to Spoleto as Hurricane Hugo, which merely blew the roof off Gaillard Municipal Auditorium.

By 1993, Menotti had removed one Spoleto administration and attempted to remove another, referring to his board of directors as "a nest of vipers."

He set neighbor against neighbor, milked the festival for some $250,000 every season and threatened to install his spectacularly untalented long-time companion (eventually his adopted son) Francis "Cheep" Phelan as "heir" to his leadership.

Menotti continued to fulminate to anybody who would listen. On the PBS Charlie Rose program in 1994, he called the new administration "incompetent. They are using my leftover, you know," he said.

"It's just like selling Gucci bags, you know, imitation Gucci bags around the corner." He added that he always lived beyond his means. "My philosophy is that as long as I have to travel on the Titanic, I might as well go first class."

Speaking as somebody who visited Spoleto for The New York Times, Newsday and The Washington Post before my present happy position as the writer of the "overview" column for The Post and Courier, I can attest to the fact that most musicians, and virtually all of the critics I know, were delighted to see Menotti go.

Who wanted to hear his mostly tawdry operas every year? Who needed his outspoken hostility to jazz, pop, performance art and the avant-garde?

Most importantly, perhaps, who needed his ad hominem attacks on good, devoted Charlestonians, who had given so much to help establish the festival? The divisions he sowed in this community are only beginning to heal, 16 years later.

Time has passed, Menotti has died and "Cheep" was immediately dumped by the original Spoleto festival in Italy. Meanwhile, in Charleston, Spoleto Festival USA thrives.

Nobody would deny the many gifts Charles Wadsworth has bestowed on Charleston — he has served as host and impresario for some 900 concerts over the last 32 years.

But Wadsworth is smart and generous enough to recognize, to celebrate, the fact that the festival is a continual work-in-progress, beholden to no one figure, no matter how charismatic.

Wadsworth did not "save" the festival; it needed no such saving. I hope and trust that it will delight our descendents as it delights us today.