Annual Spoleto Festival Begins

The renowned summer music and opera festival in Spoleto has returned for yet another impressive season. Held in the center of the Umbrian town, the Spoleto Festival has brought together American and Italian culture for 56 years. Founded by Gian Carlo Menotti, the festival is host to a wide range of cultural events, from grand opera to science and economics conferences, and art exhibits to symphonies.

This year’s festival, from June 27th-July 13th, is no exception. The La Mort de Cleopatre opera performance kicks off the festival, which includes: a reading by Isabelle Huppert; Love Letters starring Gérard Depardieu and Anouk Aimée; a retrospective of De Sica; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; The Paul Taylor Dance company; and many myriad musical, artistic and theatric performances. The final concert, held in Piazza Duomo, is a tribute to American musicals, featuring songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner.

Also known as the Festival dei Due Mondi or the Festival of Two Worlds, the feast of cultural events combines artists and spectators from Italy and the U.S. This festival has been copied in Melbourne, Australia, Charleston, South Carolina, and plans for two more American installments in Nashville, Tennessee and Tidewater, Virginia are in the works.

A calendar of events can be found on the Spoleto Festival’s website.

–Marissa Bondi