Experience the Arts at the Spoleto Festival In Historic Charleston

By Deborah Lambeth

In just a few short weeks, from May 27 until June 12, 2005, Charleston, South Carolina, will be transformed into a virtual arts smorgasbord with the beginning of the Spoleto Festival and its companion, Piccolo Spoleto. For 17 days and nights in the spring, there are over 120 performances by world-renowned artists in all areas—opera, dance, theatre, visual arts, and choral, chamber, jazz, and symphonic music. The annual Spoleto festival audience is between 70,000 and 80,000 each year.

A sampling of this year’s performances includes a premier performance of a new production of "Don Giovanni," a theatre presentation of "Like Doves We Rise," a jazz appearance by Shirley Horn, and music by the Westminster Choir performing the German Requiem. Spoleto has become one of the most prestigious festivals in the Southeast and the only American arts festival to be hosted by an entire city. It has also become one of the world’s major arts festivals. Over 100 world premieres and 93 American premieres have been presented since Spoleto began in 1977. One of the festival’s purposes is to provide young performers the opportunity to work with veteran directors, designers and performers. World-renowned artists who performed early in their careers at Spoleto Festival USA include Renée Fleming, Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo Ma, the Emerson String Quartet, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

In 1958, Gian Carol Menotti, a Pultizer Prize-winning composer, began the Spoleto Festival in Spoleto, Italy, as a performance venue for American artists in Europe. Many years later, the Festival of Two Worlds organization began looking at a site in the US to host the Spoleto Festival (to be called Spoleto Festival USA) that would be the counterpart to Menotti’s Italian festival. After looking at various possible sites, Charleston, South Carolina, was chosen to be the host city due in part to the large number of performance spaces already established. So, in 1977, Menotti, Christopher Keene, and others involved in the Festival of Two Worlds began a partnership between America and Italy to hold two complementary Spoleto Festivals.

Each festival is a haven for a large group of artists, both traditional and experimental, and the mix of dance, theater, opera, music, and the visual arts is both exciting and stimulating. Held at the same time as the Spoleto Festival, Piccolo Spoleto is operated by the City of Charleston’s Office of Cultural Affairs. Whereas Spoleto Festival USA features artists and performers of national and international acclaim, Piccolo Spoleto highlights outstanding local and regional artists with over 800 performances scattered throughout the city. While both festivals are independent of each other, they compliment each other with the same artistic energy and talent.

The mission of Spoleto, according to their website, is "to create a comprehensive and innovative arts festival in Charleston, South Carolina. The Festival produces and presents events featuring an international mix of distinguished artists and emerging talent. The Festival seeks excellence in all of its endeavors as it strives to provide excitement, enjoyment, and education for artists and audiences alike."

The Festival has been meeting its mission resoundingly over the past twenty-seven years, and this year should be no different. Travel to Charleston to see, hear, and experience the arts!