AP News, February 14th, 2007
The Spoleto Festival USA will celebrate the life of the late Gian Carlo Menotti, who founded Spoleto 30 years ago, and organizers envision doing so with least one additional presentation this spring.
"All of the artists and all of the members of the audience, board and staff since 1977 have in some way benefited from his inspiration," festival director Nigel Redden said this week in an e-mail to supporters.
The note called the Pulitzer Prize-winning Menotti "a remarkable composer and friend of the arts and artists." Menotti died Feb. 1 in Monaco at the age of 95.
Spoleto spokeswoman Jennifer Harris said Wednesday that details have not yet been worked out, but there will likely be at least one additional performing arts program added to celebrate Menotti's life.
Menotti created the American festival in Charleston as a counterpart to his Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. He left the American festival in 1993 in an ongoing dispute over finances and who his successor would be. The festivals shared some artists and productions over the years, but that ended when Menotti left. Since his death, there has been some speculation that the two festivals could again cooperate.
This year's Spoleto Festival USA will run from May 25 through June 10 and feature 125 performances, including the first American production of "Book of Longing," a 12-part music cycle by composer Philip Glass based on Leonard Cohen's poetry collection of the same name.
The festival will also feature the American premieres of two French operas, Gluck's comic Baroque opera "Merlin's Island or the World Upside Down" and contemporary composer Pascal Dusapin's "Faustus, the Last Night."
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On the Net:
Spoleto Festival USA: http://www.spoletousa.org
