Spoleto Festival USA 2010
May 28 - June 13, 2010
With over 45 different productions, the 34th annual Spoleto Festival is a performing art lover’s dream come true! Here are some of our picks but keep in mind there are many more performances than those featured here!
Purchase tickets and find out more info by calling 843.722.2764 or visiting www.spoletousa.org
OPENING NIGHT
The Opening Night Fête on May 28, immediately following the performance of the hilarious Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Cadrlo, offers patrons and artists the chance to celebrate the start of the festival with a party in the beautiful gardens of the Spoleto headquarters, downtown.
The National Ballet of Georgia and prima ballerina Nina Ananiashvili return to the festival in a spectacular performance of Giselle, accompanied by the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra. The epitome of romantic ballet, Giselle is a poignant tale of unrequited love, remorse, and forgiveness. Many ballerinas have danced the difficult title role, but few have attained the combination of luminous elegance, rock-solid technique and dramatic skill personified by Ananiashvili.
Under the direction of choreographer Andrea Miller, New York based Gallim Dance performs I Can See Myself in Your Pupil, an energetic and sensual suite of dances. Set to a diverse arrangement of music by the Israel band, Balkan Beat Box.
Lucinda Childs’ Dance was considered revolutionary when it premiered 30 years ago. Set to an original score by Philip Glass, Dance is framed by a film by artist Sol LeWitt, which is projected onto a translucent scrim in front of the stage, and with which the dancers seamlessly interact. The contrast between the dancers onstage and the original cast captured on film creates an extraordinary performance.
Part dance, part theater and part carnival sideshow, Oyster blurs the line between dreams and reality. Inspired by a short story by film director Tim Burton, the performance of Tel Aviv’s Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company makes use of elaborate costumes and highly imaginative props.
Ancient Gods take center stage in the marionette opera, Philemon and Baucis. The opera premiered in 1773 and recounts the story of how Gods Jupiter and Mercury reward Philemon and Baucis for their humble generosity. Singers and Spoleto Festival Orchestra members will accompany the lavishly costumed, handcrafted Colla Marionette Company.
Opera lovers will enjoy a new production of Flora, an Opera, an 18th-century English ballad opera that was the first opera ever performed in the American colonies in 1735, and was actually performed at Charleston’s Dock Street Theatre in 1736! After three years of renovation, the Dock Street Theatre just re-opened its doors this April. How poetic that the same timeless opera will perform there once again, 274 years later!
Elegantly staged and luxuriously costumed play, Present Laughter – an absolute success during a recent Dublin run – is a delight of barbed witticisms, ironic comedy, and chaotic farce.
The Wachovia Jazz Series includes debuts of female vocalists Lizz Wright (pictured), Norma Winstone and Fabiana Cozza.
FESTIVAL FINALE
Festival favorites, Carolina Chocolate Drops, known for expanding the rich tradition of fiddle and banjo music of the Carolina Piedmont region, will headline the Festival Finale, complete with family style picnics and evening fireworks at Middleton Place Plantation.
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