1968 was a key year for the 20th century and for Spoleto: it is a shame, therefore, to have to do without one of the rare volumes missing from the yearbook collection at the “Carducci” Library in Palazzo Mauri. However, some of the hall programmes from that edition are still preserved: there is Menotti’s opera “La Santa di Bleecker Street”, the evening of French experimental theatre directed by Michael Cacoyannis, “Il suggeritore nudo” by and with Paolo Poli from Marinetti, or the symphonic concert in Piazza Duomo with Vivaldi’s “Gloria” and Mozart’s “Messa da Requiem” entrusted of course to Thomas Schippers. But 1968 in Spoleto was much more: Menotti again with the Wagnerian opera “Tristan and Isolde”, the theatre of Edward Albee and that of Israel Horovitz with Al Pacino and John Cazale, the art of Christo and Isamu Noguchi. Luckily the 1969 yearbook comes to our aid, immortalising the protagonists, atmospheres and emotions of that wonder year.
The splendour of the Festival is further confirmed in the programme of the following edition; the 1969 yearbook shows “L’italiana in Algeri” by Rossini directed by Patrice Chéreau, Menotti directing “El retablo de maese Pedro” by Manuel De Falla and staging his “La Medium”, the absolute novelty of Eliot Feld’s American Ballet Company debuting in Spoleto, the retrospective on Leoncillo, the exhibition on Willem De Koonig, Thomas Schippers enchanting Piazza Duomo with Beethoven’s Ninth and a real milestone of the theatre: “L’Orlando Furioso” by Ronconi and Sanguineti.
In 1970, the Festival continued to seduce with its shows, following a rigorous path of research and experimentation: the programme opened with the opera “Il Giuramento” by Saverio Mercadante directed by Tito Capobianco, while Menotti donated his madrigal fable “L’Unicorno, la Gorgona e La Manticora” to the choreographic talent of John Butler. Another titan of US dance, Merce Cunningham, draws his original and very free figurations to music by John Cage, David Tudor and Gordon Mumma while Spanish dance finds its splendid and elegant representative in the company of Antonio Gades. La MaMa is back, Alberto Testa’s Dance Concerts are back, among the exhibitions there are Robert Rauschenberg’s lithographs and the photographs of the actor and director Dennis Hopper, while for Thomas Schippers it is the turn of Mozart’s “Mass in C minor K. 427”. At the Teatro Caio Melisso there is the programme “La Poesia Italiana del Novecento” according to Edoardo Sanguineti.
The Festival Of Two Worlds’ Yearbooks are also available for consultation at Casa Menotti – Festival Of Two Worlds’ Documentation Centre.
