Looking for the perfect excuse to soak up art, music, and food in one of the South’s most charming cities? Charleston’s Spoleto Festival has you covered. Every spring, this historic city comes alive with performances that span the globe — opera, jazz, dance, theater, and everything in between — all set against a backdrop of cobblestone streets and blooming magnolias. Whether you’re a lifelong arts lover or just in it for the vibes (and let’s be honest, the shrimp and grits), Spoleto offers a little magic for everyone. This year the festival runs from May 23rd through June 8th, and it’s not too late to book a quick getaway.
The Spoleto Festival – A Little Background
In 1958, Pulitzer-Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti founded the Festival dei Due Mondi (The Festival of Two Worlds) in Spoleto, Italy. Featuring a wide selection of concerts, opera, dance, drama, visual arts and roundtable discussions, the festival was intended to showcase American and European cultural offerings in a head-to-head format.
To complete his vision, Menotti sought a city in America that could host a twin event and found Charleston, South Carolina to be ideal. “It’s intimate, so you can walk from one theatre to the next. It has Old World charm in architecture and gardens. Yet it’s a community big enough to support the large number of visitors to the festival,” Menotti told the Spartanburg Herald when promoting the infant festival in 1976.
Despite financial problems from the outset and contentious leadership squabbles due to “personality conflicts,” (one almost wishes the festival would dramatize its behind-the-scenes story in a performance, as it sounds juicy), Spoleto has established itself as one of America’s premier performing arts festivals.
What You Could See
In a typical season, Spoleto mounts 150 performances in more than 10 venues, both indoors and open-air (a detailed schedule of which can be found on its website.) To get an idea of what this might consist of: the festival’s mission is to “present programs of the highest artistic caliber while maintaining a dedication to young artists, a commitment to all forms of the performing arts, a passion for contemporary innovation, and an enthusiasm for providing unusual performance opportunities for established artists.”
Spoleto festival produces its own operas — specializing in “rarely performed masterpieces by well-known composers” — American premieres, and traditional works presented in new ways. These performances are as likely to feature well-known artists as they are to highlight emerging ones in opera, theater, dance, and chamber, orchestral, choral, jazz, and contemporary music.
If you scroll through The Spoleto’s program history, which catalogues its 48 years of performances, you’ll find an intriguing mix of artists and various performance disciplines. For example, on this year’s docket, in one day (Thursday, May 29) you could choose between chamber music, “aural memoirs” performed by the Four Festival Orchestra fellows, the U.S. premiere of White Box (“a performance blending dance, music, film, and projection to tell the true story of a lost expedition to fly over the North Pole in a gas balloon”), and Arooj Aftab, a Pakistani composer and vocalist performing a blend of jazz, South Asian classical music, pop, and blues, “a mix she calls ‘global soul,” amongst many others.
Know Before You Go:
The Spoleto Festival is an incredibly popular event, recognized the world over, so it’s usually a good idea to book your trip as early as possible for the best accommodations. That said, it’s not too late to plan a quick getaway to absorb some incredible art, culture, and hopefully, sunshine. You can buy tickets to performances ahead of time online, or tickets are offered in-person beginning May 19. (It’s also worth mentioning that for people who don’t suffer from anxiety without plans solidly in place, tickets for sold-out performances “may be available at the door on a first-come, first-served basis.”)
When it comes to accommodations, Charleston offers a wide variety of places to stay that provide convenient access to the festival. Hotels like the Francis Marion and the Charleston Place are popular choices, as are the Fulton Lane Inn, The Ryder Hotel, and Hotel Bella Grace. Similarly, you could opt for a more quaint experience in one of the area’s many delightful inns or bed & breakfasts scattered across the historic district.
