We’ve just received word that Gian Carlo Menotti, the founder of
Spoleto Festival, has died in Monoco at the age of 95. The Italian
opera composer was a force for music, theatre, dance, and performing
arts of every genre, and the Charleston that we know and live in today
exists in no small part because of his decision 31 years ago to select
our city as the American site of the counterpart to his Festival du Dei
Mondi, or Festival of Two Worlds — the progenitor of today’s Spoleto
Festival USA. We’ll have a fuller report on Menotti’s death as soon as
we have a more information. In the meantime, is fair to say that a
legend has passed. —PS
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