Spoleto Festival USA

The tradition & historical record

Spoleto Festival USA is an annual performing arts festival in Charleston, South Carolina. It was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due Mondi (The Festival of Two Worlds) in Spoleto, Italy. When Italian organizers planned an American festival, they searched for a city that would offer the charm of Spoleto, Italy, and also its wealth of theaters, churches, and other performance spaces. Charleston was selected as an ideal location, with Menotti saying of Charleston: ¹

It's intimate, so you can walk from one theatre to the next. It has Old World charm in architecture and gardens. Yet it's a community big enough to support the large number of visitors to the festival. The annual 17-day late-spring event showcases both established and emerging artists in more than 150 performances of opera, dance, theater, classical music, and jazz. ¹

The festival experienced financial problems from its outset which produced a quick turnover in leadership. On September 27, 1976, Theodore "Ted" Stern, the president of the College of Charleston at that time, was named as the new chairman of the Charleston Coordinating Committee after the departure of Hugh Lane. Personality disputes also arose involving Menotti. Menotti, who had served as the artistic director for the festival since its founding, claimed in 1991 that he was not interested in renewing his three-year contract when it ended in 1992 over artistic differences. The board did not officially accept his resignation immediately, but Menotti stood by his intentions, blaming artistic differences with the board and lack of personal control: "I no longer feel it is my festival, and this has been my life for 15 years. I feel a bit lonely among them. I'm treated like a clerk." Most significantly, Menotti had a poor relationship with the festival's general manager, Nigel Redden, who challenged programming decisions, expense accounts for Menotti, and administrative decisions by Menotti. Two camps developed on the board, splitting support between those backing Redden and those who supported Menotti (including Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr.). Mayor Riley supported Menotti so strongly that he threatened to withdraw city support for the festival if Menotti were pushed out. Eventually, in May 1991, Menotti issued an ultimatum that either Redden and his supporters resign or Menotti would. ¹

In September 2020, Nigel Redden announced his retirement from the festival, after 35 years of involvement with Spoleto. In July 2021, the festival announced Mena Mark Hanna as its new General Director. Hanna is the first person of color to lead the festival, and the fourth general director in the festival's history. Hanna previously served as the founding dean of the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin. ¹

The Festival's mission is to present programs of the highest artistic caliber while maintaining a dedication to young artists, a commitment to all forms of the performing arts, a passion for contemporary innovation, and an enthusiasm for providing unusual performance opportunities for established artists. One of the Festival's tenets is to provide young artists the opportunity to work with veteran directors, designers and performers. Artists who performed at Spoleto Festival USA early in their careers include Renée Fleming, Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Yo-Yo Ma. Each year, the Festival produces its own operas, which are often rarely performed masterpieces by well-known composers or traditional works presented in new ways. It also presents theater, dance and music programs ranging from classical to jazz, bluegrass, soul and blues. Since its inception, the Festival has presented over 200 international and U.S. premieres, notably Creve Coeur by Tennessee Williams and The American Clock by Arthur Miller. Other premieres have included Monkey: Journey to the West by Chen Shi-Zheng, Damon Albarn, and Jamie Hewlett; Peter and Wendy by Lee Breuer; The American Clock by Arthur Miller; The Mechanical Organ by the Nikolais Dance Theatre; Miracolo d’Amore by Martha Clarke; Empty Places by Laurie Anderson; Hydrogen Jukebox by Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg; Praise House by Urban Bush Women; Three Tales by Steve Reich and Beryl Korot; and Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov ¹

The official companion festival to Spoleto Festival USA, is operated by the City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs. After two years of mini-festivals, Piccolo Spoleto was created as an official part of the overall Spoleto program in 1979. Whereas Spoleto Festival USA features artists and performers of national and international renown, Piccolo Spoleto highlights outstanding local and regional artists with several hundred performances throughout the city. Piccolo Spoleto is "the perfect complement to the international scope of its parent festival and its 700 events in 17 days transform Charleston into an exhilarating celebration of performing, literary and visual arts." Piccolo Spoleto concludes the day before the main festival with a free concert in Hampton Park. Except for 2001 (when they were held on Daniel Island), the closing ceremonies have been held at Hampton Park since 1984 when the event coincided with the reopening of the refurbished park. ¹

Each year members of the Festival Orchestra are selected by nationwide auditions to form the Festival's resident ensemble. The orchestra works with the Timothy Myers as well as with guest conductors in opera, symphonic, choral, chamber, and contemporary music performances. Over the years, the Festival Orchestra has proved to be an opportunity for young musicians to gain extensive performance experience. Alumni of the Spoleto orchestra can be found in almost every professional orchestra in the United States and many abroad. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Spoleto Festival USA”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Spoleto Festival USA is non-profit organization in the USA, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 8 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²