CAROLINA'S GRAND NEW OPRY

By MICHAEL WALSH/CHARLESTON

In his creative heyday, Gian Carlo Menotti, 83, was noted more for his dark, neo-Puccini operas, such as The Saint of Bleecker Street and The Medium, than for comedy or farce. In later years, however, the aging composer more than made up for it. The setting was the antebellum-in-aspic city of Charleston, South Carolina, where in 1977 Menotti founded an American counterpart to his annual Spoleto Festival in Italy. Two years ago, Menotti resigned in a huff after a petulant, embarrassing two-year power struggle with the festival's board and management. First the board insisted on including an avant-garde art exhibit Menotti opposed, then it rejected Menotti's chosen successor, his adopted son Francis. When Spoleto Festival USA announced a shortened season and a $1.7 million deficit last year, there were fears it might not long survive its mercurial founder.

"They think they have learned my formula and can now do away with my presence," taunted Menotti in 1991. Ciao, Gian Carlo: they have, they did, and now they are getting along very nicely without you. Indeed, as painful as it was, Menotti's departure is probably the best thing that could have happened to the festival, which is currently in the midst of its 1995 edition. Under its formidable new general manager, Milton Rhodes, a native South Carolinian and former president of the American Council for the Arts, and with enthusiastic support from Charleston's feisty mayor, Joseph P. Riley Jr., Spoleto has weathered the artistic equivalent of Hurricane Hugo (which battered the city in 1989), reduced its debt by half a million dollars, and boosted its schedule to a robust 17 days, 51 programs and 141 performances-from the previous 12 days, 45 programs and 110 performances.

The quality this year is as uneven as it was under the Menotti regime -- ranging from the spectacular (Irish actor Barry McGovern in I'll Go On, a mordant one-man show derived from three novels by Samuel Beckett) to the mediocre (Hans Werner Henze's tired exercise in late-'50s avant-gardism, Der Prinz von Homburg) to the risible (the washed-up soprano Renata Scotto singing the role of the Marschallin in Richard Strauss's opera Der Rosenkavalier). Still, Spoleto seems on course to become one of the nation's most important and enjoyable arts events.

Most arts festivals in the U.S. are devoted to a single discipline: opera in Santa Fe, New Mexico; theater in Williamstown, Massachusetts; concerts at Ravinia, Illinois. What the country lacked, until Menotti came along, was a multidimensional festival that both took over a city and took advantage of its architecture and history. During the Menotti era, Spoleto USA benefited and suffered from his increasingly conservative and capricious tastes. There were some noteworthy premieres, such as Arthur Miller's play The American Clock, Martha Clarke's dance Miracolo d'Amore and the Philip Glass-Allen Ginsberg opera Hydrogen Jukebox. But the constant wrangling between Menotti and the festival board-frequently over works the director found objectionable-diminished both Menotti and the festival. As a result, Spoleto USA has never enjoyed the stature of its European counterparts.

Menotti finally quit in 1993, threatening to take the name of the festival with him. Festival officials insist they own the name and will keep it-though its value is debatable. The festival would seem less like an outpost or an afterthought were it named for a place in the U.S. rather than for the Umbrian town where in 1958 Menotti founded his Festival of Two Worlds (so called for its heavy representation of American performers). "Menotti would very much like for us to [change the name]," says Riley, "but we want to keep Spoleto Festival as a permanent artistic legacy for him." Riley, perhaps the only mayor in the country who can expound on the virtues of Tchaikovsky's opera The Queen of Spades, shrugs off the prolonged battle with Menotti: "It's just too bad he's not here to bask in the beauty of what his vision created."

Spoleto is a model of the way an enlightened community and an arts event can be mutually supportive. Charleston contributes $200,000 in cash and in-kind support to the festival's $4.5 million budget. Private contributors, foundations and local businesses, such as NationsBank, which sponsors Charles Wadsworth's exemplary chamber-music series, chip in the rest. In return, as Riley points out, the festival has raised property values and generates $42 million a year in tourism.

Charleston is still far from a new Athens, or even a new Boston. But the involvement of its citizens with the goings-on at the festival is remarkable. The local newspaper, the Post and Courier, runs a daily front-page column by critic Robert Jones during the run of the festival and publishes a daily Spoleto Today insert with detailed reviews. Locals drop by the bar at the old Mills House Hotel downtown to chew the artistic fat with visitors, and residents happily throw open their historic houses for tours. The city's downtown blooms with life; clowns, sidewalk musicians and children fill the streets.

The events onstage are more of a mixed bag. There was no caviling with the lush staging of this year's production of Der Rosenkavalier, imported from the Teatro Bellini and handsomely conducted by Spiros Argiris. Argiris, Wadsworth and choral director Joseph Flummerfelt form Spoleto's troika of artistic directors. The performance also boasted a splendid Baron Ochs in bass Daniel Lewis Williams. But Scotto, 61, has little voice left, and what there is is toneless and shrill.

By contrast, McGovern, in his one-man Beckett show, exhibited total control of his sometimes thorny (and at other times hilarious and obscene) material, modulating his accent, delivery and tempo with a command any opera singer would envy. Equally impressive was a chamber concert whose highlight was a delicious performance of Benjamin Britten's rarely heard Cello Sonata by the brilliant young German cellist Alban Gerhardt and the fiery American pianist Anne-Marie McDermott. The chamber concerts are held in the historic 400-seat Dock Street Theatre, which (though completely restored and renovated in 1936) is the oldest theater currently in use in America. Under Wadsworth's genial oversight, each chamber program is performed three times, and the works are informally and humorously announced from the stage. At the Garden Theatre, the Canadian troupe Theatre Sans Fil staged skillful, whimsical performances of puppetry without strings.

It is this relaxed yet serious approach that marks Spoleto at its best. One would hope, in years to come, that the festival will give more stress to American programming-it makes little sense to celebrate Europe here, when Europe is perfectly capable of celebrating itself there. In addition, the festival could integrate itself more closely into the fabric of Charleston history by offering, for instance, concerts of mid-19th century American music in one of its great houses.

Still, Spoleto's future in the post-Menotti era appears to be secure. "The 'recipe,' as Gian Carlo used to call it, is intact," says Riley. Now it's time for the real home cooking to begin.