Spoleto will honor Menotti's spirit

S.C. Festival will remember its founder
as it stages his opera, 'The Medium.'

If ever a life testified to the power of art, Gian Carlo Menotti's did.

He wrote his first opera as an 11-year-old in Italy, and he was still at work in his 90s. In between, he composed copious amounts, most famously operas - such as his Christmas classic "Amahl and the Night Visitors," a hymn to the healing power of generosity.

When he wasn't composing, he founded arts festivals that transformed two towns: Spoleto, Italy, and Charleston.

It's only been four years since Menotti's death. Yet the 100th anniversary of his birth falls soon after this year's Spoleto Festival USA.

Even though Menotti and the festival split in 1993, Spoleto - offering its own lesson about generosity - will celebrate his memory. The festival, which opens May 27, will unveil a new staging of "The Medium," Menotti's thriller about a fake psychic who loses control of her scam.

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/04/17/2224263/spoleto-will-honor-menottis-spirit.html#storylink=misearch#ixzz1Yi3b5xB2