Italy's oldest performing arts festival raises the curtain on its 66th edition, scheduled this year from June 23 to July 9, 2023, and once again transforms Spoleto into the city of the arts.
The founding mission remains timeless, as does the atmosphere of a place that for three weeks mixes reality with fiction, everyday life with the magic of theater, artists with spectators, connecting Music, Opera, Dance, Theater, Art through the creativity of the best international artists and companies.
Monique Veaute 's artistic direction since 2020 has brought the dialogue between disciplines and the contamination of genres back to the center of artistic programming by putting the audience in front of to innovative and unconventional experiences. The two great orchestras-in-residence, both international excellencies, coexist, that of the Budapest Festival conducted from Iván Fischer, engaged this year in a new production d'Opera, and that of theAccademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with conductors Jakub Hrůša and Antonio Pappano for the two opening and closing symphony concerts. Around to them revolve the from midday chamber appointments involving not only the Budapest musicians but also those of thePerugia Orchestra from Camera for a cycle all about animals in music. The relationship between man, nature and other living species on the planet runs through the entire program, which questions the feelings of human relationships, love and death, identity and diversity, justice and discrimination. The new production of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande by Iván Fischer and Marco Gandini accompanies to a cast of the highest caliber and completes a playbill in which artist names such as Silvia Costa and Laetitia Casta appear with two new musical theater projects. Emerging are the great voices of Rhiannon Giddens and Imany, the virtuosity of Cameron Carpenter on organ, the electronics of Max Cooper with a live audio-video performance, and the scratchy timbre of African American artist Lonnie Holley accompanied by the Nelson Patton duo.
Theater looks to Italian directors and performers: Leonardo Lidi tackles Zio Vanja in his second leg of the trilogy on Chekhov, Antonio Latella puts the students of the Silvio d'Amico Academy to the test with a tribute to Massimo Binazzi, Luca Marinelli and Fabian Jung interrogate Kafka's Monkey, Silvio Orlando is a performer in Ciarlatani from Los Farsantes by Spanish playwright Pablo Remón while Alessandro Baricco stages Thucydides with Stefania Rocca and Valeria Solarino, accompanied by music by Giovanni Sollima, Enrico Melozzi and the 100 cellos. Sergio Blanco lands at the Festival with his Divina Invención while the project with Giorgio Flamini 's prison inmates for a Shakespearean "dream" and special initiatives on "The World That's Not There" continues.
For the dance section, Benjamin Millepied 's project with Alexandre Tharaud, which sees the choreographer's return to solo dance, is accompanied to by two new productions by Sharon Eyal - Gai Behar, Into the Hairy with Christian Dior Couture costumes, and Marie Chouinard with the new "M ." At Teatro Romano Marco Goecke arrives while étoile Fernando Montaño reinterprets Kafkaesque metamorphoses with a dance gala. Innovative duo Jonas&Lander play their carte blanche with three performances.
Surrounding the official poster are collateral events and special events that make Spoleto a living place of modern-day artistic creation: meetings with artists, awards, art installations and exhibitions. Artist Enzo Cucchi signs the official poster of the sixty-sixth edition. The exhibition On Gian Carlo Menotti's tracks is renewed, which tells the story of the Festival through the heritage of costumes, objects, photographs and documents from the Festival's historical archives and the intangible heritage enhancement project.
The partnership with Rai Per la Sostenibilità-ESG continues within the projects on social, economic and environmental sustainability initiated by the Foundation adhering to the United Nations Agenda 2030 goals.
La Fondazione Carla Fendi, Main Partner of the Festival, presents ALL IS NUMBER and continues its commitment to the knowledge and dissemination of scientific culture with the Carla Fendi Stem Prize. The Musica from Casa Menotti review returns as part of the Monini Foundation initiatives to support of the Festival and the "Una Finestra su Due Mondi" award. Also this year, the Festival hosts the theater review and workshops organized by the Silvio d'Amico National Academy of Dramatic Art and the La MaMa Spoleto Open review that brings together the experiences of the most talented actors, directors and emerging companies on the international scene.