Spoleto is a delightful town in Umbria, one of those classic, on-a-hill picturesque towns that most everyone falls in love with.
It’s one of the many, star-struck lover locations of this part of Italy.
I went many years ago to Spoleto and naively thought it was an out-of-the-way secret.
So to see it pop up in the New York Times I was somewhat surprised.
Apparently though, once upon a time, there was a partnership between the Spoleto Festival USA (in America) and the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto.
The collaboration is being revived after a 15-year break and the death of musician Gian Carlo Menotti who had founded the Italian festival in 1958 in Spoleto.
Emmanuel Villaume, Spoleto USA’s music director, will be conducting at the Italian festival this summer and although management has been cagey about other plans, a joint opera production for the summer of 2009, with Bollywood film director Sanjay Leela Bhansali handling stage production, is in the planning process.