Monique Veaute presents the 64th edition of the Festival dei Due Mondi
Culture at the forefront
from 64 years old, during the weeks of the Festival, Spoleto meets the world and the world meets again to Spoleto. Spoleto is a spectacle in itself. The plot of its history can be read in the exceptional fabric of monuments, churches, palaces, cloisters, squares, streets and becomes an extraordinary interweaving from see and from enjoy. But Spoleto is a vital and attractive city even in the present, able to open up to the world, to dialogue with the contemporary.
This is how its founder, Gian Carlo Menotti, shaped the Festival dei Due Mondi: a synthesis of the riches of the city, a place of mending between cultural heritage and new languages of the scene, an opportunity for dialogue between tradition and avant-garde, for the encounter between different cultures. from 64 years old, the Spoleto Festival offers extraordinary listening and viewing experiences that enrich artists and audiences. Also this year, despite the difficulties related to the pandemic, the Festival proposes a set of artistic projects whose variety is in tune with the world of national and international creativity. The intent is to involve the interest and curiosity of the entire Spoleto and Umbrian community, and at the same time to enhance and make the territory known to an increasingly international audience.
Music occupies a prominent position, taking up the thread that dates back to the origin of the desired event from Gian Carlo Menotti. to leave from this year and for the next five Spoleto will host two of the leading international musical institutions in residence, theAccademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia directed from Antonio Pappano and the Budapest Festival Orchestra led by from Iván Fischer. The musical proposal of Spoleto64 crosses the boundaries between elitist creations and popular experimentation and opens up to All music: classical, baroque, ancient, pop, techno, jazz.
The theatre and dance proposals encourage comparison and exchange between big names on the international scene and young people from different backgrounds and backgrounds. Although with a great variety of styles and languages, the guest artists of the Festival share a common intent, that of expressing the sense of disorientation we feel towards a complex reality in which it seems difficult to orient oneself, but they also take the opportunity to transform the cohabitation of different cultures into a joyful madness.
Dante has a central place in the 2021 programming: one of the main figures of Italian and world culture is celebrated with a series of theater, music and cinema events, as well as moments of reflection involving the scientific community and its scholars.
The Spoleto Festival has always been a place of meeting and exchange, a role that we think is essential in the relationship between the spectator and the artist. Alongside the shows, the public, music and theater lovers, students, and citizens of Spoleto will be able to participate, via streaming, to a series of meetings with the main guest artists of the Festival.
The specificity of the Spoleto Festival also comes from its vocation to host cultural events with prestigious guests at the helm of cultural enterprises, public and private institutions. With debates, stories and comparisons, they will talk about the challenges that await us: in particular, the events promoted by the Fondazione Carla Fendi, historical and important partner of the Festival, and those of Rai, not only Main Media Partner of Spoleto64 but also creator of a Rai Festival for the Social that will be held within the Festival dei Due Mondi.
Spoleto64 confirms its national and international vocation by expanding the space of artistic partnerships. Beyond to I am pleased to recall that the proposals contained in the programme involve partners from seven countries and are also born, in the field of jazz and theatre, also from a new collaboration with two important cultural institutions in our region: Umbria Jazz and Teatro Stabile dell'Umbria.
The 2021 edition of the Festival faces the challenge of the pandemic with the aim of transforming it from problem to opportunity. At the time of closing the program and writing these lines, we do not know what the distancing requirements and mobility conditions will be for people in the next months of June and July. It's an uncertainty that affects both artists and audiences. Opposite to Spoleto64 responds by favouring the use of outdoor spaces with seven concerts in Piazza del Duomo. The possibility of allowing access to the following is being studied, in the event that the number of places available has to be reduced. to all proposals through digital channels.
Another challenge to the virus was the decision shared with the artists to present film, video or documentary versions of the shows of the African, British and Australian companies that had to give up to come to Spoleto. It is not difficult to imagine the difficulties with which the construction of the program presented here had to be measured, in a historical phase marked all over the world by the drama of the pandemic and by the uncertainty about the immediate future, and also about that to longer-term, social relationship modalities to to which we are accustomed. An uncertainty that has affected and affects, in particular, the forms of cultural expression and its enjoyment live.
The artistic direction starts from the conviction that the sensitivity and cultural themes that artists are able to intuit and solicit, and the public to perceive and elaborate, can tell us something about the world we live in and its problems, including those that exploded with the pandemic. They can provide some elements to imagine the future and understand how we could build it while avoiding derailing our societies towards potentially worst-case scenarios, especially in terms of the environment. Today, more than ever, the Festival is important so that the seeds of a new awareness can germinate and grow, to leave from stimuli that affect emotions and intelligence in equal measure.
Those who worked on the 2021 edition of the Spoleto Festival were surrounded from a strong and warm support from the whole city, as well as from public institutions and Italian and foreign partners and stakeholders of the Festival. Equally constant has been the attention that the media are dedicating to the Festival and to the dissemination of its contents. This aid has been invaluable. Just as precious and irreplaceable are the contributions of the Ministry of Culture, the Municipality of Spoleto and the Umbria Region and their recognition of the cultural value of the Festival's initiatives. Despite the difficult, sometimes unpredictable and unprecedented conditions, the Foundation's staff Festival dei Due Mondi He has worked with great commitment and professionalism and deserves my sincere thanks.