Newest US. Immigrant: Spoleto

"I fell in love at first sight. It's the sort of city I'm glad to be married to." The indefatigable Composer-Director-Impresario Gian Carlo Menotti was at it again, in what could be the greatest --and riskiest--romance of his long career in music and the performing arts: launching an American version of Italy's Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C. Menotti created the original festival in June 1958, transforming the quiet old Umbrian hill town of Spoleto into an international center of the arts.

Charleston's clean and narrow streets, cloistered gardens and the pastel colors of its colonial houses readily ratify Menotti's sense of what makes a good set. As the twelve-day festival began last week, the question was whether the exquisitely languid dowager city would prove a worthy audience.

Somewhat hesitantly, it did. Italy's Spoleto title, Festival of Two Worlds, suggests that Menotti had transatlantic ambitions when he moved into Spoleto 20 years ago. The site search for the U.S. half of the enterprise did not begin until 1973, however; New Orleans and San Antonio were among the places considered. Says Conductor Christopher Keene, Spoleto's music director and the first member of the staff to advocate Charleston: "It had a combination of positive and negative values--a highly developed aesthetic and architectural sense combined with a relatively undernourished cultural life."

Charleston also had good performing and tourist facilities. Almost as important, Spoleto U.S.A. received local pledges of $200,000 toward the $850,000 cost of the first season. Many proper Charlestonians. however, had doubts at the beginning, and a few still do. They are fond of their city as it is and well aware that an annual cultural bazaar like Spoleto can overwhelm a small city --the jazz festival engulfed Newport, R.I., for years. Nor were Charlestonians reassured by reports that some money raised in the U.S. was to be set aside for the Italian festival. That was initially a problem, concedes Menotti, but the misunderstanding has been resolved.

Charleston's hotels and inns were less than full on opening day, and the streets were hardly crammed with festival goers. Less than 2,000 paying customers showed up at the 2,700-seat Gaillard Municipal Auditorium for the first big evening event--the four-hour uncut production of Tchaikovsky's opera The Queen of Spades, first introduced last year at Spoleto, Italy. But if the variety and excellence of the first week's offerings were fair guides, Spoleto U.S.A. should become a success.

Spoleto U.S.A. is devoted to all the arts. Simon Gray's new play Molly was the attraction at the restored Dock Street Theater (see following story). Noon at the Dock Street was the hour for a daily series of chamber music programs under the co-directorship of Pianists Peter Serkin and Charles Wadsworth. The first recital consisted of works by Pergolesi, Schubert and Dvorak, and the capacity audience of 463 rose to its feet, applauding at the end.

The dance program began with performances by Heinz Poll's Ohio Ballet and the Eliot Feld Ballet of New York City. At festival's end a daylong celebration of the music of Scriabin will be topped off by premieres of new balletic works by George Balanchine, Sir Frederick Ashton and Glen Tetley.

She-Crab Soup. There was something for everyone and every age, from jazz sets to film screenings. To the delight of children, giant puppets strolled the streets. Free sculpture and art shows blossomed at scenic and historic sites around the city. Charleston's restaurants were ready with that minor art form known as low-country cooking: she-crab soup, sauteed shrimp, fried oysters, Limehouse sausage.

To the relief of the farmers around Charleston, rain began falling the day before the festival, ending a six-week drought. To the relief of Menotti and his colleagues, the rain stopped just before the opening outdoor ceremony at noon the first day. From a temporary stage erected in the courtyard of the two-century-old College of Charleston, a crowd of 3,000 heard the Festival Brass Quintet begin with the Star-Spangled Banner and a brief new piece written for the occasion by Menotti, Fanfare for Charleston. Earnest speakers followed, talking of "commitment to excellence" and "art must be part of the equation." As the music resumed, the dignitaries marched off the platform, thoroughly distracting the audience from some 16th century music for brass. The next piece had been commissioned by the festival, but Composer Morgan Powell's Windows turned out to be a muted, scurrying, atonal work poorly suited for the out of doors. When two military jets droned over during its course, the musical battle was entirely lost.

Matters went more smoothly that evening during The Queen of Spades (in English) at the Gaillard auditorium. Backstage facilities are cramped, and the pit holds only 65 musicians. Fortunately, they were 65 of the best young instrumentalists Keene could recruit from around the U.S. Said Keene proudly: "It's the finest orchestra Spoleto has ever had." Leading the players adroitly through the lushly colored Tchaikovsky score, Guide Ajmone-Marsan, the Italian-born conductor, made a brilliant U.S. operatic debut.

Red Tape. The conception by Italian Stage Director Filippo Sanjust was appealingly natural and gimmick free. He does, regrettably, have a tendency to rush his chorus on for its big moments, then get rid of it in a hurry. Despite a few intonation problems in the high range, Soprano Patricia Craig of the New York City Opera made a soulful Lisa. The Italian soprano Magda Olivero brought her legendary stage authority to the role of the Countess, although there is not much left of a once distinctive voice. As the obsessed Herman, Jack Trussel was the highlight of the show. Here is an American singing actor with a riveting, haunting stage presence and a clear, powerful tenor voice to match.

The next night brought a new production of The Consul, Menotti's classic statement against fascism, red tape and human indifference. It was a smash hit on Broadway in 1950. Directed again by the composer, with Keene conducting, The Consul remains Menotti's most powerful stage work. Any performance of The Consul lives by its Magda, the woman who batters her heart and soul day after day at the consul's office in search of a visa, and who in the end commits suicide. Menotti has chosen her wisely. Marvellee Cariaga, of the San Diego Opera, has a lustrous mezzo voice, and her ability to convey Magda's growing agony is harrowing.

Throughout the opening week of his new artistic love match, Menotti was smiling, intent, actively engaged in trying to wave off the applause that followed him wherever he went in Charleston. The hurly-burly of festival life --speeches, parties, rehearsals, crises, the promoting of funds to pay the bills this year and next--is something that he obviously thrives on. Now 65 and looking 15 years younger, Menotti is one of the great brooding achievers in the field of the performing arts. He can say, and mean it, "I am almost 66, and I have to start fighting the shadow of death." And then he can add with a twinkle in his eye, "When I see darkness coming, I turn on the stage lights and don't worry about the cost of electricity." Menotti intends to keep the stage lights on for a long time in Charleston, and he is a man who has obviously never met an obstacle he did not like.

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