Spoleto returns with a packed lineup of in-person music, dance and theater

Spoleto is back! After a canceled 2020 season and a severely truncated, mostly outdoor season in 2021, the South’s great arts extravaganza will be back in business this spring in Charleston with a robust season featuring more than 120 events across a wide cultural spectrum. 

The Spoleto season starts May 27. The festival will require audience members to be fully vaccinated for Covid, including boosters, and masks will be mandated.

As always, or at least before Covid, there’s a strong international representation in programming and casting. And as explained by Mena Mark Hanna, Spoleto’s new general director, this season’s programming “explores migration, be it forced, exiled, or voluntary.” 

The festival’s 46th season include a long-awaited opera co-written by folk/Americana musician and singer Rhiannon Giddens, a Cuban dance company and the Spoleto debut of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra Chorus.

Here are some of the highlights of the return of Spoleto:

Opera

The festival will feature three fully staged works of opera. One of these, Omar, by Giddens and Michael Abels, will finally have its world premiere after two postponements. The opera is based on the true story of Omar ibn Said, the African Muslim scholar who was brought to Charleston as a slave in 1807. Directed by Kaneza Schaal and conducted by John Kennedy, Omar opens on May 27 at the Sottile Theatre. 

Unholy Wars, also presented for the first time here, is an opera that consists of selections from the early Baroque period stitched together by tenor Karim Sulayman to reveal a story of “the Crusades from a contemporary Arab American perspective, examining the Western opera canon’s relationship to the Middle East.” It opens May 29 at the Dock Street Theatre. 

Puccini’s La Boheme will be presented in a production by edgy director Yuval Sharon which, among other touches, reverses the order of the three acts, so that it proceeds “from devastation towards hope and love.” Vimbayi Kaziboni will conduct, with Lauren Michelle as Mimi and Matthew White as Rodolfo. 

La Boheme opens May 28 at the Charleston Gaillard Center.

Dance

Reggie Wilson’s dance performance work, Power, investigates the evolution of African American worship, focusing on the Black Shakers, imagining their services based on what is known about them. Wilson’s company, the Fist and Heel Performance Group, is based in Brooklyn. With a cast that includes eight dancers and three vocalists, Power opens May 28 at the Sottile Theatre. 

Ballet Encore will feature dancers from New York City Ballet in a gala-style evening encompassing a broad spectrum of work. It opens June 1 at the Sottile Theater. 

Malpaso Dance Company, a sought-after Cuban dance troupe, will present three works, two of which were commissioned for the company. They tour with 11 dancers. Performances begin June 10 at the Sottile Theatre. 

Theater

French-Norwegian company Plexus Polaire will present an adaptation of Melville’s Moby Dick, staged with seven actors and 50 life-size puppets. This performance, opening in Festival Hall on May 27, will be the U.S. premiere. 

Until the Flood is a one-woman show based on the 2014 shooting of teenager Michael Brown by officer Darren Wilson. It will be performed by Dael Orlandersmith, who created it. It opens June 3 at Festival Hall.

Other theater works include a play yet to be announced, performances by “post-modern diva” Meow Meow, and a program by physical theater company Machine de Cirque. 

Chamber music

Chamber music programming has been an enduring and popular feature of Spoleto from the earliest days, and this season will include 11 programs, each performed three times, directed and “hosted” by Geoff Nuttall. Since taking over in 2009, Nuttall has maintained the very high level of chamber programming but has made the endless commentary that surrounds it at Spoleto more cerebral and less cornball than in earlier years. 

He’s also abandoned the patronizing practice of keeping programs secret until the audience is in the seats, so that now you can select your program and prepare for it properly. 

Nuttall’s own ensemble, the excellent St. Lawrence String Quartet, will be joined by London’s Castalian String Quartet and by marquee artists including pianists Pedja Muzijevic and Inon Barnatan, oboist James Austin Smith, violinist Ayane Kozasa and tenor Paul Groves. All performances take place at the Dock Street Theatre. 

Music in Time

For fans of new and experimental classical music, the Music in Time series directed by John Kennedy, now the festival’s resident conductor and director of orchestra activities, is always a required visit. The series opens on May 29 at the Sottile Theatre with a program that includes the world premiere of percussionist Jessie Cox’s Alongside a Chorus of Voices, “a rumination on bells’ duality as a symbol of both liberty and oppression.” Also on the bill: Departure Duo (Edward Kass and Nina Guo) will perform Evil Peak, a song cycle in the Jamaican language by Mikhail Johnson inspired by the 13th century frieze “The Dance of Death.”

Other programs in the series include the U.S. premiere of a work by noted composer Nico Muhly and a concert of works by Tyshawn Sorey. 

Classical and jazz

On June 9, the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra, which performs for the operas and concert programming across the festival, will present Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in a concert at the Gaillard Center, with Joe Miller conducting. This marks a turning point, as the longtime and much loved choral ensemble for the festival, the Westminster Choir, is no longer part of the festival. In their place for this concert will be the Charleston Symphony Orchestra Chorus. 

Jazz is always part of the Spoleto mix, and this season includes an intriguing concert by Sengalese musician Youssou N’Dour and his “high energy Super Étoile”in a concert titled “Mbalax Unplugged.” Other jazz artists on the calendar include South African Nduduzo Makhathini; the piano/bass duo Linda May Han Oh and Fabian Almazan; and saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, son of John Coltrane.

How to experience Spoleto

There’s a lot more, including talks by the various artists. Complete schedules, with peformance times, venues, and ticketing are available via the festival website. It’s relatively easy to experience Spoleto, especially if you’re able to devote a weekend or a few days. For the more popular events, advance tickets are advised, but if you’re flexible, you can always show up and try your luck. 

Charleston is beautiful in the spring, and the dining scene is almost overwhelming. It’s especially nice if you can stay “on the tongue,” as almost everything is then within walking distance. But hotel prices decline significantly if you’re willing to stay away from the downtown area. Hotels near the airport are much more attractively priced during Spoleto season.