Festival dei 2 Mondi Spoleto - Spoleto - Umbria - Italy
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Description Festival dei 2 Mondi Spoleto
Festival dei Due Mondi (Festival of the Two Worlds)
is an annual summer music and opera festival held each June to early July in Spoleto, Italy since
its founding by composer Gian Carlo Menotti in 1958. It features a vast array of concerts,
opera, dance, drama, visual arts and roundtable discussions on science.
Because Spoleto was a small town, where real estate and other goods and services were at the time
relatively inexpensive, and also because there are two indoor theatres, a Roman theatre and many
other spaces, it was chosen by Menotti as the venue for an arts festival.
It is also fairly close to Rome, with good rail connections.
The festival has developed into one of the most important cultural manifestations in Italy, with a
three-week schedule of music, theater and dance performances. For some time it became a reference
point for modern sculpture exhibits, and works of art left to the city by Alexander Calder and others are
a testimony to this. Because of loss of funds and the birth of many similar festivals throughout Italy,
the Spoleto Festival has now lost its international prominence; however, it remains a very important cultural event.
The "Two Worlds" in the name of the festival comes from the fact that it is held in conjunction with its "twin",
the Spoleto Festival USACharleston, South Carolina. After disputes with the Menotti family, the American
Spoleto Festival is now independent. For a short period of time, a third parallel festival was also held in
Australia.
As of the 2007 Festival, the President and Artistic Director is Francis "Chip" Menotti.
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