Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi 2023

Find out more information about the Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi 2025!

Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi 2023 (Spoleto Festival of the Two Worlds 2023) will take place between June 23 and July 9, 2023, in Spoleto.

The renowned international festival of music, art and culture is held every year in Spoleto since 1958. The 2023 edition of the event will be the 66th edition of the Festival dei Due Mondi.

SHORT HISTORY

The festival was founded in 1958, in Spoleto, by the Italian-American composer and librettist Gian Carlo Menotti. He chose Spoleto due to the beautiful historical center of the town, for the presence of the two theaters, Teatro Nuovo and Teatro Caio Melisso, and for Piazza del Duomo, a beautiful open-air theater suitable for an event of such magnitude.

In 1962, took place one of the first major events of the festival, the exhibition Sculpture in the city. After the festival, some of the works were donated to the town, including the work of Alexander Calder, Teodelapio.

Over time, many famous artists performed on the stage of the festival. Of these, we can mention the name of the Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti, the American playwright Tennessee Williams, the Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, the film director Roman Polanski, the Spanish ballet dancer Joaquín Cortés, the composer Nino Rota, the Italian director Luchino Visconti and the American poet Ezra Pound.

Starting with the mid-nineties and until 2007, the artistic director of the festival was the adopted son of Gian Carlo Menotti, Francis Menotti. In autumn 2007, the minister of cultural heritage, Francesco Rutelli, appointed Giorgio Ferrara as the artistic director of the festival and assigned him the task of relaunching the event.

In 2020, Monique Veaute, former director of Palazzo Grassi, was appointed the new director of the Festival dei Due Mondi for the next five years.

THE VENUES

The venues in which the main events of the festival take place are: Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti and Teatro Caio Melisso for concerts and operas, the Roman Theater for ballet shows, Teatrino delle Sei for avant-garde performances, modern dance, exhibitions, installations and concerts, the monumental complex of San Nicolò for conferences, shows and concerts, Rocca Albornoziana for concerts, and the beautiful Piazza del Duomo for the Dance Marathon, the Gala and the closing concerts.