The final concert and the culmination of the Spoleto Academy was in the beautiful church of Sant’Eufemia just a stone’s throw from the Cathedral.
If music be the food of love …please play on .
A glorious outpouring of music making of rare sensitivity and passionate intensity. From the refined beauty and sumptuous freedom of Dvořák dances with Benedetto Lupo, the anchor around which revolved three young musicians from his class.
The subtle insinuation of Lupo’s bass, accompanied the refined intensity of Antonin Bonnet, but it was the subtle humour of Lupo that brought a real smile of recognition. Fulvio Nicolosi playing with great delicacy with Lupo again echoing comments of beguiling insinuation before both building in intensity and passion dying away to a music box radiance and glitter. Herman Cerisha brought energy and rhythmic drive to the last of these three dances. A whispered energy from Lupo brought radiant beauty from Herman as he floated Dvořák’s magic melody on a cloud of subtly moving sounds.
There was the tragic intensity of Mahler’s one movement piano quartet with Andrea Obiso reaching for the heights as he led his young colleagues to places they had never been before. The pulsating menace from Massimiliano Soriente on the piano was the undercurrent that ran through the entire movement with the ‘cello of Francesco Angelico in duo with Andrea Obiso with an unforgettable burning intensity of yearning and liberation. Scott Storey’s viola found a voice of his own as he mirrored the beauty of Andrea’s whispered comments.
The final cry from the Guarneri of Obiso was a solo cadenza that was a blow to the heart indeed. A remarkable performance helped by the magnificent acoustic of Sant’Eufemia which made one realise that Mahler could never have even contemplated adding other movements to what is an ‘Unfinished’ masterpiece.
A refined and scintillating performance of Haydn’s Gypsy Rondo Trio with Benedetto Lupo and Andrea Obiso taking eleven year old Riccardo Laganà with them on a journey of a lifetime. Some very stylish playing from Andrea encouraging Riccardo with a twinkle in his eye as together they added to the radiant simplicity of Benedetto Lupo’s beautiful playing. Lupo just ready to pounce with the Gypsy rondò that leapt from his fingers with a dynamic drive of refined control and enticing brilliance . All three united in a build up of energy of exhilaration and excitement. What a journey they had shared together and what an experience for a young ‘cellist on the crest of a wave and the youngest performer ever at the Spoleto Festival.
But the crowning glory was a glorious full throttle performance of Schumann’s wondrous piano quintet. Benedetto playing from memory or should I say from heart . This was a performance to lift up your heart indeed and realise what emotional power music making of this mastery and conviction can exert on a world too ready to accept quantity rather than quality. The passionate opening dissolving into the liquid beauty of Lupo’s playing on a magnificent Steinway Concert Grand with the lid fully open, where he could control the magnificent kaleidoscope of sounds within without ever allowing them to overpower his colleagues. A sumptuous radiance as the cello of Martino Tazzari communed with Andrea’s Guarneri with playing of youthful passion. There was an improvised beauty as the viola and cello joined forces with heartrending beauty. The second movement was played with a whispered intensity of a desperate yearning passing from one instrument to the other until Lupo added his magnificent bass to this pulsating journey of intense beauty. There was a beautiful diminuendo to the ending that seemed to drift into oblivion. Rudely awoken by the scintillating playing of Lupo and the equally energetic playing of Obiso ,two masters with a burning light driving these young musicians to ever greater heights. Heights that ended in a glorious outpouring of nobility and radiance all united with Schumann in a poetic outpouring of sumptuous beauty.
This was the true legacy of Menotti whose presence this year under Daniele Cipriani and friends has never been felt so strongly.
The Spoleto Festival Academy with 22 superb musicians dedicating their youth to art .
What music making, but what fun they are having . Created by Massimo Spada and Beatrice Rana this is the true rebirth of Menotti’s Festival where the concerti di Mezzogiorno saw a youthful Jacqueline Du Pré, Richard Goode Renée Fleming and many others making their first appearance in an Italy that Rostropovich considered ‘The Museum of the World’
With Daniele Cipriani at the helm of his first edition he has created a cultural fervour that will continue to grow in significance.
Spoleto has not savoured this for years since Edinburgh and Spoleto were the guiding light in a post war state of shock.
Menotti of course had a castle in Scotland as he also had a house overlooking the Cathedral in Spoleto.
A guiding light that is reignited today
First day in Spoleto with the Festival dei Due Mondi Academy of 22 specially selected musicians taking part in master classes of renowned soloists . Together making music in public concerts at mid-day in the Sala Pegasus whilst all around in every part of the city there is Ballet, Opera, Theatre and Symphonic concerts .
Today I spent with Benedetto Lupo inspiring young musicians to listen more closely and delve even deeper into the scores. As he told Fulvio Nicolosi who gave a very fine performance of Liszt’s transcription of Wagner’s Liebestod – you play it Liszt’s way but I play it Wagner’s! Wheras a later performance of the Dante sonata was truly Liszt at his most theatrical. Lupo pointing out that you need to ration the energy and to sing not run!
The fifth midday concert was dedicated to the Strauss violin sonata with Oleksii Tyshchenko and Antonin Bonnet and the Franck Quintet with Piero Cinosi Francesco Venudo, Alberto Bongiovanni, Martina Bonaldo and Viola Sommariva. Superb performances playing to a full and very enthusiastic audience. Infact it was to Oleksii and Antonin that Beatrice Rana and Daniele Cipriana awarded a special prize at the end of these two weeks of intense music making. An award that will see them returning in 2027 to perform officially in the festival programme.
Piero Cinosi had played just an hour earlier Chopin’s 4th Ballade to Lupo, and Bonnet an hour after the Strauss ,Chopin’s 2nd Piano Concerto!
I was only able to hear the last three of these midday concerts. The sixth was with the twenty year old Giulia Falzarano playing Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G minor. A very flamboyant player who feels the music intensely and could communicate her burning energy to Moritz Defregger,Daniele Valabrega and Daniele Ferraro in a performance that was of sublime youthful freshness and invention. The other work was in G major and it was Brahms’s later Quintet for strings played with great beauty and depth by Lisa Fediukova,Francesco Venudo, Davide Pizzo,Daniele Valabrega and Francesco Angelico.
Benedetto Lupo rushing off to rehearse Schumann Quintet and Haydn Gypsy Trio that he will play with Andrea Obiso and others on Saturday .
Just time for a bit of dance in the beautiful Teatro Nuovo that is now named after Menotti who very much put Spoleto on the map and would yesterday have been 115 !
The curtain about to go up on ‘Du Bout des Lèvres’ directed by Benjamin Millepied. What a breath of fresh air this was in a theatre that would do any capital city proud and has been so beautifully restored . Seduced by the beautiful poetic songs of ‘Barbara’ with eight dancers floating in through white etherial drapes as they danced to the music with poetic elegance seeming to float on wings of song.
And another performance of dance after a day spent with the class of Benedetto Lupo was with pianist ,Kirill Richter, performing with his trio, his own suite of seven movements, commissioned especially for the ‘Seven Ages’.Russian trained Paris-based composer and pianist is associated with a style often characterised as expressive minimalism and with a dancer that the choreographer Marco Goecke wanted to express the uncertainty and intensity of the human spirit. In the fortress that overlooks Spoleto with the musicians in the middle of a circle and the dancer revolving around them, they were even helped by a violent wind that swept across the fortress with thunder adding even more suggestive sounds to a remarkable score by this young musician.
Miracles in Spoleto as Benedetto Lupo and Andrea Obiso reach for sublime heights with students of the Festival Academy
Magic in the air here in Spoleto with Massimo Spada’s Festival Academy where 22 super gifted young musicians are together for three weeks of sublime music making
Beatrice Rana just forty days after giving birth to Margherita is ready to stand in at the last minute for an indisposed Yuja Wang ……what a triumph she had ……….I had heard her play this in London last summer. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2025/08/11/beatrice-rana-takes-london-by-storm-rachmaninov-of-poetic-beauty-and-ravishment-conquers-the-proms/
Francesco Piemontesi stood in at the last minute with a recital that I had heard in London.
Beatrice Rana the musical consultant who has risen to the occasion finding superb solutions for last minute problems that can arise in a Festival of such magnitude and importance.
The award includes financial support intended to sustain the Center’s activities, which Wilson wanted to be “a place that offers a global community time, space and freedom to create and inspire.” Residencies, exhibitions, and educational programs also for teenagers and children culminate in the Summer Festival, an event in which artists work collaboratively.
Aware that Wilson’s legacy is so vast and protean that it wouldn’t do him justice to only fill the frame that he left us, “because there is only one Robert Wilson”,Chemin states: “We will continue to highlight Robert Wilson’s unique vision, but also the openness that, as he himself wanted from the very beginning, The Watermill Center carries, ensuring that our path to artistic creation remains vibrant.”
FINAL PRESS RELEASE
Spoleto 69: An all-time record for box office takings, cultural programme and excitement. The success of Daniele Cipriani’s first term as Artistic Director paves the way for the 2027 edition which will mark the Festival’s 70th anniversary.
Spoleto, 12 July 2026 – The 69th edition of the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, the first under the leadership of the new Artistic Director Daniele Cipriani, draws to a close this evening. For 17 days, the
Umbrian town has once again been the beating heart of the international arts scene: with debuts, avant-garde productions and others by established masters, t he Festival has rediscovered its most authentic energy, drawing on Gian Carlo Menotti’s precious legacy to relaunch it with renewed international vigour,
open to dialogue between music, opera, drama, dance, theatre and the visual arts.
This edition has put Spoleto back on the map at the centre of the world, restoring that special atmosphere which, over the years, has made the Festival unique: lively piazzas and streets bustling with people until late night, artists mingling with the inhabitants and the public, bringing theatre onto the streets so that it becomes a collective experience for the whole town.
Artistic Director Daniele Cipriani has stated: “It has been a great honour, but also a huge responsibility to direct, for the first time, the Festival that was conceived, created and cherished by Gian Carlo Menotti. I decided to have two outstanding consultants by my side: Beatrice Rana and Leo Muscato. I have worked to place myself at the service of the Festival, to listen to its history, to rediscover its roots and, from those roots, to nurture new branches and new perspectives. The real value-added lies not only in the success of
each single event, but in the ability to transform a town into a community united by art. The 70th edition will take place from 25 June to 11 July 2027: following this year’s theme ‘Roots’, next year’s will be ‘Visions’.
Because roots only make sense if they continue to shape the future.”
A few figures from the 69th edition
The 69th edition of the Festival dei Due Mondi, the first directed by Daniele Cipriani, saw over 35,000 tickets sold and record-breaking takings of almost 1 million 100 thousand Euros: the highest financial
result ever.
Daniele Cipriani further adds: “These are impressive figures, but what makes them truly significant is the way in which they were achieved: by considerably expanding the Festival’s artistic programme, not merely to ‘pad the numbers’, but to offer an even richer and more varied programme – ranging from classical to contemporary dance, from chamber music to major symphonic concerts, right through to pop performances by Arisa and MIKA and to David Szauder’s artificial intelligence research. Our choices stem from the belief
that a festival like this should invite everyone to step beyond their own boundaries: those who come for a concert may discover dance, whilst those who come for an opera may be surprised by digital art. Our mission is not to confirm the audience’s tastes, but to broaden them, creating opportunities for curiosity to make new discoveries.”
This year, the Festival presented 121 shows and cultural events, totalling 290 performances. 1,057 artists
from 28 countries were supported by a team of 354 people, including employees, collaborators, technicians and staff at the various venues. Simonetta Allder
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 