The Festival dei Due Mondi, or Festival of the Two Worlds, is an annual summer festival featuring music, dance, theatre, visual arts, and opera. It is held for three weeks in June and July in the beautiful Umbrian town of Spoleto.
Festival of 2worlds Program
The premier venue of the festival Spoleto's Piazza del Duomo has featured many legendary artists such as Rudolf Nureyev, Carla Fracci, Ezra Pound, Luchino Visconti, Luciano Pavarotti, Vittorio Gassman, and Roman Polanski. Smaller concerts take place in other locations in and outside of the city, like in ancient Valnerina churches.
Opera & Music
In 2024, opera fans will be able to see Le bourgeois gentilhomme / Ariadne auf Naxos and Orpheus and Eurydice. There will also be an opportunity to attend Midday concerts, Scenes from the Post-Diaspora, Alessandro Lanzoni Trio feat. Francesco Cafiso, Dado Moroni, Eddie Gomez & Joe La Barbera jazz concerts, an acoustic evening with Carla Bruni, Micah Thomas Trio jazz concert, Barbara Hannigan & All Stars, Lizz Wright, Piano piano, Oneohtrix Point Never, and Girl Crazy. Concerto finale performances.
Musical Theater & Dance
This year musical theater scene presents the play Baùbo / sull’arte di non essere morto. Dance performances Last Minute, PORTRAIT, Variazioni verticali, Die Seele am Faden / Soul Threads, LoveBar, Memory of a fall, Deepstaria, and takemehome will delight visitors with their diversity.
Theater
Theater lovers can enjoy Una relazione per un’accademia, Uffa che barba!, I mormorii dell’anima, Autoritratto, Il giardino dei ciliegi, CRETA, Progetto Čechov – Trilogia completa, La curiosa eredità di Orfeo, La morte a Venezia.
Festival visitors can also visit art events, the Due Mondi Kids panel, and various interesting meetings. Located in the heart of the Umbrian countryside, with a good transport connection to Rome, the festival has become a mecca for artists. It featured great modern sculpture exhibits, and a few works, like those of Alexander Calder, were left in the city. Even though it lost some popularity after Menotti's death, the Spoleto Festival remains an important cultural event in Italy.
Festival History
This festival was established in 1958 by an Italian composer Gian Carlo Menotti in 1958. To get American and European cultures closer, the Spoleto Festival got a "clone" in the USA, which takes place in Charleston, South Carolina, during May and early June. In 1986, the Spoleto Festival was launched in Melbourne, Australia. However, in the present time, the original 56th Festival dei 2Mondi has remained only in Spoleto. After the death of Menotti, the festival is now run by a Fondazione Festival Dei Due Mondi Spoleto O.N.L.U.S. chaired by Carla Fendi.
