Spoleto Festival USA: the 42nd season ends with second-highest ticket sales in festival history

Ticket sales top $3.3 million

Highlighted by four US premiere productions, four world premieres, and several new musical arrangements, the 42nd season of Spoleto Festival USA proved to be another landmark 17-day celebration of the performing arts, held May 25 to June 10. In summary, the 2018 Festival welcomed more than 65,000 ticket holders to 158 performances and events, achieving ticket sales of more than $3.3 million—the second highest in Festival history. (The Festival’s 40th season still ranks as first in ticket sales.) “Often at the end of each season, members of our audience will tell me that it has been the best Festival ever,” remarked Festival General Director Nigel Redden. “This year, however, I heard from even more audience members that it was indeed the best Festival. Our patrons praised the Bank of America Chamber Music series, loved The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, were moved by Brahms’s German Requiem, fascinated by Tree of Codes—I could go on. Suffice it to say, it was a great Festival.”

For 17 days, audience members flocked to each of the 33 Bank of America Chamber Music concerts; filling Charleston’s historic Dock Street Theatre to hear “extraordinary musicianship” (The Post and Courier) and a wide range of music that spanned 500 years. Composer-in-residence Doug Balliett presented two world premieres, including a Fanfare for Double Bass, Trombone, and Bass Clarinet and Gawain’s Journey, an octet for the St. Lawrence String Quartet and JACK Quartet. The Post and Courier wrote: “[Gawain’s Journey] was evocative program music whose style clearly referenced its medieval setting yet, with its expressive effects, managed to be fresh and engaging.” Members of the Westminster Choir joined the chamber musicians on the last program for a tender and rare performance of Franz Schubert’s “Gesang der Geister über den Wassern.” Program XI also included a new Balliett-arrangement of Queen’s “Who Wants to Live Forever;” celebrated tenor Paul Groves singing in the style of Freddie Mercury became an instant audience favorite.

The Westminster Choir, led by Festival Director of Choral Activities Joe Miller, presented three choral concerts. The Cathedral Church of St. Luke and St. Paul provided the backdrop for Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir, a piece so “monumental and strenuous that few choirs can successfully perform it” (The Post and Courier). Yet the Westminster Choir singers, the review continued, “made the Mass their own…striking dissonances dissolved into settled harmonies; running passages were as clear as a coloratura soprano…the applause…grew to a well-deserved standing ovation.”

The Dock Street Theatre also housed the electrifying US premiere production of Liza Lim’s modern opera, Tree of Codes, conducted by John Kennedy (Festival Resident Conductor and Director of Orchestral Activities) and directed by Ong Keng Sen. Audience members, wrote Limelight magazine, relished “the spectacular ‘monolith’ set and scrim that carries off both light and video effects like a model on a catwalk. Designer Scott Zielinski is ably abetted by James F. Ingalls’s lighting design and Austin Switser’s dazzling video projections. Equally impressive is John Kennedy’s marshaling of the eclectic musical demands of Lim’s score.” Within the “intriguingly enigmatic and oddly compelling” work (Limelight), the singers surpassed expectations. In a “splendidly committed performance,” Elliot Madore’s “warm baritone and excellent diction negated any need for surtitles” (Limelight), while soprano Marisol Montalvo, too, “dealt superbly with the fiercely complex vocal lines” (Musical America).

The US premiere of Donizetti’s 19th-century Pia de’ Tolomei also earned critical praise. Soprano Amanda Woodbury “brought a bright, flexible soprano to the role of Pia, communicating the character’s perpetual state of anguish” (The Wall Street Journal). The Post and Courier stated, “Woodbury, a soprano headed for greatness, sings the role of Pia with conviction and extraordinary technical virtuosity.” And conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya was “firmly in control” (The Wall Street Journal) leading the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra. Wrote Limelight: “[Yankovskaya] brings a fiery spirit to a score that could easily feel routine and has a sure instinct for pacing, while always finding room to bring out Donizetti’s melodic orchestrational felicities.”

Uptown at the Woolfe Street Playhouse, John Kennedy presented the world premiere of his composition, Declining, during the new music series Music in Time. (David Smooke’s All Are Welcome Here also received its world premiere on the same program.) On June 2 at the Gaillard, Kennedy—“Spoleto’s busiest conductor” (South Carolina Public Radio)—boldly led the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra through a multimedia staging of Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite and Alexander Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony. The inventive evening, titled You Are Mine Own, was directed and conceived by filmmaker Atom Egoyan and featured singers Natalia Pavlova and Alexander Dobson—who also performed solo parts in Brahms’s comforting German Requiem. The Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra earned special praise from The Post and Courier for that performance—and its many others: “It’s repetitive to point out just how fantastic the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra is, but each performance is as good—if not better—than the one before it.” On June 9 the Orchestra, led by Steven Sloane, took center stage in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 15 and Mahler’s first symphony.

Two additional US premieres punctuated Spoleto Festival USA’s opening week: Henry Naylor’s emotionally intense play Borders, starring Avital Lvova and Graham O’Mara, and the “inventive and impressive” (The Post and Courier) physical theater work Backbone from Gravity & Other Myths. “Backbone is spectacular artistry and jaw-dropping fun,” Charleston City Paper wrote. The weekly alternative paper also remarked on National Theatre of Scotland’s Festival debut, stating that The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, an immersive work at the Woolfe Street Playhouse, “upends any recent experience you’ve likely had at the theater.”

Dock Street Theatre audiences rose to their feet after each performance of The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, a colorful, “endlessly imaginative” (Limelight) joint production from Bristol Old Vic and Kneehigh. The season also saw the triumphant seventh return of the master puppeteers of Carlo Colla and Sons Marionette Company, whose sold-out productions of The Pied Piper delighted ticket holders of all ages. The company’s opera offering, Il matrimonio segreto—with vocalists from the Westminster Choir and members of the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra conducted by Marco Seco—surprised many by its humor and artistry. The Post and Courier’s opera critic wrote: “My companion laughed until she cried, and so did I, between moments of disbelief—not at the preposterous plot—but at the miracle that was the marionettes. If there’s a ticket to be had, grab it. And bring a tissue.”

Jumpstarting the 2018 dance series was an ode to choreographer Jerome Robbins and his history with Spoleto. Held May 25 in the Charleston Gaillard Center, Celebration: The Art of the Pas de Deux incorporated film, photographs, commentary from Miami City Ballet Artistic Director Lourdes Lopez (who had worked with Robbins during her performance career), and three pas de deux danced by members of Miami City Ballet with guest artists of New York City Ballet. Three additional performances from Miami City Ballet allowed the dancers to expertly showcase the company’s “impressive artistic range” (Charleston City Paper)—they brought a varied repertoire by George Balanchine, Kenneth MacMillan, Justin Peck, and Alexei Ratmansky.

Two programs in Memminger Auditorium from tap dance company Dorrance Dance proved to be favorites of Festival-goers and critics alike, with The Post and Courier describing the full-length ETM: Double Down as going “far beyond the limits of dance.” And of contemporary dance company A.I.M and its founder, Charleston City Paper stated, “[Kyle] Abraham, as choreographer and artistic director, distills essential spirits from hip hop to Motown to classical ballet to create a motion cocktail that intoxicates and delights the senses.” In the final days of the Festival, three principal dancers of New York City Ballet (Sara Mearns, Jared Angle, and Taylor Stanley) joined forces with postmodern choreographer Jodi Melnick to present a work of experimentation on a double bill at the Emmett Robinson Theatre. One of Sixty-Five Thousand Gestures/NEW BODIES “were wonderful examples of how the creative process of an art form can be just as illuminating as the final product” (The Post and Courier).

The new First Citizens Bank Front Row series included one of the most-buzzed-about concerts of the season: Ranky Tanky. Following an insightful discussion, “Front Row Talk: Mining the Gullah Groove,” with moderator Larry Blumenfeld, Ranky Tanky captivated a sold-out College of Charleston Cistern Yard crowd. The Charleston Chroniclewrote, “The Lowcountry’s pride and joy thrills Spoleto Festival USA with Gullah-based soul.” Persistent rain and thunderstorms threatened almost every outdoor concert during the Festival, yet the disruptive weather held off for bluegrass icon Ricky Skaggs, who, with band Kentucky Thunder, kicked off the First Citizens Bank Front Row series on May 31 with a “jubilant” concert. The Post and Courier wrote: “The band played…with such verve and enthusiasm that one couldn’t help but get swept up by the energy.”

A tropical storm did, however, move the Fred Hersch Trio indoors, from the Cistern Yard to the TD Arena. Yet despite the venue shift, the trio’s “veteran musicianship transformed a cavernous gymnasium into an intimate club, reminiscent of a night at the Village Vanguard” (The Post and Courier). The review continued: “At 62, Hersch maintains a quiet authority, allowing ample space for the music to speak for itself. No frills or pretension, rather, honesty and deliberation…The concert was a masterclass in the art of the trio and brilliantly exposed why Fred Hersch is one of the most important players of this generation of jazz.” The Wells Fargo Jazz series also featured critically acclaimed performances from pianist Jon Batiste, whose “natural, expressive phrasing…was the hallmark of his performance” (The Post and Courier), as well as from Artifacts, Trio 3 Plus Vijay Iyer, Craig Taborn, Chucho Valdés Quartet, and vocalist Jazzmeia Horn. Of the young jazz singer, The Post and Courier detailed: “At a mere 27 years of age…she claimed her space with conviction, leading with youthful ferocity, and exuding a graceful fortitude wise beyond her years…The future of [jazz] is in gifted, liberated hands thanks to Horn’s rare and extraordinary talent. As is her voice, so is her future: limitless.”

On Sunday, June 10, the Wells Fargo Festival Finale drew crowds to Joseph P. Riley Park—the first time in festival history that the event was held in a location other than Middleton Place. The evening began with an impassioned performance from The War and Treaty: “Husband-wife duo of Michael and Tanya Trotter quickly went to work. Backed by a drums/bass/guitar/keys quartet, their contagious energy radiated across the baseball field,” wrote Charleston City Paper. “People seated 100 yards away in the stands began to make their way onto the field.” And after an “inspired show” from headliner The Lone Bellow, a spectacular display of fireworks, set to Tom Petty’s “American Girl,” “pushed an incredible evening over the top” (Charleston City Paper).

The 2019 Spoleto Festival USA will take place May 24 to June 9. Details of the 43rd season will be announced in January 2019.