Spoleto's Festival dei Due Mondi starts in a month: the most popular shows at the box office
One month to go until the opening of the sixty-seventh edition of Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, scheduled friday June 28, 2024 at the Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti with a new staging of theopera Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss, directed from Iván Fischer and entrusted to his Budapest Festival Orchestra. Box office figures confirm the public's interest in the Festival's offering. Among the most popular titles is theopera inaugural Ariadne auf Naxos, the Final Concert at Piazza Duomo, the midday concerts, Friedemann Vogel's dance performance (the three performances are already sold out), appointments with Alessandro Baricco (sold out), the trilogy dedicated to the theater of Anton Čechov from Leonardo Lidi, and Lizz Wright's jazz concert at the Teatro Romano. The most purchased show ever is Memory of to Fall, the new production that brings the choreography of Yoann Bourgeois to Piazza Duomo.
For the opening night friday June 28 at at 20 (Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti) Iván Fischer offers a new artistic project with his Budapest Festival Orchestra, in residence at Spoleto, dedicated this time to Richard Strauss's masterpiece Ariadne auf Naxos. Fischer delves into the origins of Strauss'opera to return us to a staging that combines the suite from the Bourgeois gentilhomme, presented with a choreographic action, toopera on a libretto by von Hofmannsthal, which he also directs with Commedia dell'Arte expert Chiara D'Anna. friday June 28 at at 4 p.m. also begins Meetings with the Artists, the popular free events at the Campello Garden that on performance days invite the Festival's protagonists to to tell their stories to the public. At at 5 p.m. opens the exhibition the Festival dedicates to Giorgio Ferrara and the years of his artistic direction (Via Aurelio Saffi 12), while from 6 p.m. it will be possible to visit the solo exhibition of the artist author of the Festival poster Chiara Camoni (Palazzo Collicola). Expected for June 29 at at 18 instead is the opening of the exhibition presented from Mahler & LeWitt Studios and Fondazione Carla Fendi Legàmi. Studies in the Costume Archive of Festival dei Due Mondi (Ex Battistero della Manna d'Oro until Sept. 15), which brings together a series of images created by photographer Luis Alberto Rodriguez: together with set designer Afra Zamara, they have transformed into works of art some precious costumes from the historical archive of Festival dei Due Mondi, giving them new life. Saturday, June 29 at at 12 noon at the Star Auditorium begins the Midday Concerts series, which for three weeks guides the audience to discover the relationship between myth and music: for the first two concerts, musicians from the Budapest Festival Orchestra perform music by Händel, Cimarosa and Stravinsky. French director Jeanne Candel takes us back to her dreamlike world with a new Musical Theater creation inspired by the myth of Baùbo (June 29-30 at 5 p.m. and at 6:30 p.m., San Simone): the old priestess of Greek myth and "goddess of obscenity" who returned the smile to Demeter, generating the cycle of seasons. Candel creates a musical performance of unbridled imagination, following that magical combination of music and theater that she and Samuel Achache introduced us to in 2022 with the shows Demi-Véronique and Le Crocodile trompeur / Didon et Énée. At at 9 p.m. in Pegasus Hall, the German musicians ofEnsemble Garage - joined by from colleagues from from Taiwan, Vietnam, the Netherlands and Italy - will perform composer Baldwin Giang 's new work in a concert presented in collaboration with Mahler & LeWitt Studios, American Academy in Rome and Fondazione Carla Fendi.
For the Theatre category is special guest of Festival dei Due Mondi Isabelle Adjani (June 29-30, at 7:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., Teatro Caio Melisso Spazio Carla Fendi), a sacred monster of French cinema and international icon. Adjani voices the texts of such giants of French literature as Cynthia Fleury, Camille Laurens, Françoise Sagan, and Fred Vargas. The return of Davide Enia is awaited, from June 29 to July 7 on stage at the Auditorium della Stella with Autoritratto: a project that starts from "his" Palermo and the story of little Giuseppe di Matteo - son of a kidnapped and murdered collaborator of justice from Cosa Nostra -, a story in which the Mafia is a mirror of family reality. Italian director Antonio Latella returns to working with the students of the Silvio d'Amico National Academy of Dramatic Art for four shows: the first weekend at the Teatrino delle 6 Luca Ronconi's Risveglio di primavera is on stage, directed by Giovanni Ortoleva.
Dance opens with Mehdi Kerkouche 's new show (June 29-30 at 21, Teatro Romano), who brings to Spoleto his company of dancers, nourished by the most diverse experiences-from from hip hop, street jazz, cabaret and contemporary circus. In PORTRAIT a tribe of bodies questions family relationships, how to coexist without touching each other, how to evolve bonds, in an alternation of possibilities ranging from solo to duet and ensemble, to the hypnotic electro-pop soundtrack by from Lucie Antunes.
After Blanca Li's Paris Grand Ball that has thrilled audiences for two consecutive editions, the first weekend also inaugurates the powerful new immersive experience signed by the duo Adrien M & Claire B (June 28-July 14, Complesso Monumentale di San Nicolò). Last Minute is a combination of music, light and interactive projections, created from an intimate lived experience from Claire Bardainne that led her to to research, together with co-creator Adrien Mondot, the concept of reincarnation: thelast-minute journey.
Also expected is the return of Stefano Mancuso with a second lectio magistralis on the plant universe (June 29, at 10 a.m., Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti), continuing the path begun in 2023. A world-renowned scientist and popularizer, Mancuso is among the top international authorities engaged to studying and popularizing a new truth about plants, intelligent and sensitive creatures capable of choosing, learning and remembering.