The Festival dei Due Mondi inaugurates Daniele Cipriani’s artistic directorship
In the contemplative atmosphere leading up to Christmas, the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Spoleto hosted Elevazione spirituale, an event conceived by the newly appointed Artistic Director Daniele Cipriani in collaboration with the Archdiocese of Spoleto–Norcia. This marked the first occasion on which the Cathedral reopened its doors to the Festival dei Due Mondi since the Menotti era, ushering in a new chapter in the Festival’s history.
Before a capacity audience, music and words were woven together by the Nova Opera Orchestra and the Coro della Diocesi di Roma, conducted by Monsignor Marco Frisina, alongside readings of profound meditative power performed by inmates from the Casa di Reclusione di Spoleto: an excerpt from Bariona o il figlio del tuono by Jean-Paul Sartre and a speech by Pope Leo XIV on the theme of peace. The participation of the inmates also formed part of the Jubilee of Prisoners, the final major event of the Holy Year dedicated to prisoners and those who support them, taking place this weekend in Rome.
The evening traced a musical journey that, as Monsignor Frisina himself observed, highlighted music’s ability to speak directly to the heart through the simplicity of beauty, opening the soul to joy and hope. The programme brought together works from the tradition and original compositions by Frisina, including the Gloria from the Messa Esultate nel Signore, Tre quadri di Natale, Tante schiere d’Angeli, O magnum mysterium, the Magnificat and Adorazione di Maria.
The event was preceded at the Teatro Caio Melisso Carla Fendi by the talk Radici, a title that encapsulates the aims of the 69th edition of the Festival, scheduled from 26 June to 12 July 2026: to interweave memory and future, identity and new perspectives.
On this occasion, Daniele Cipriani introduced the team that will accompany him on this new journey: pianist Beatrice Rana - one of the most acclaimed performers on the international stage - as Consultant for Classical Music, and director Leo Muscato - renowned for his dramaturgical research and reinterpretations of the great classics - as Consultant for Opera and Drama.
“Taking on the artistic directorship of the Festival dei Due Mondi,” commented Daniele Cipriani, “means embracing a significant legacy: that of a festival which makes art a bridge between different cultures.” He recalled how Spoleto teaches that modernity is born from dialogue with one’s roots, from the ability to look ahead without nostalgia while never forgetting where one comes from. With renewed governance designed to strengthen international reach and deepen ties with the city, a new chapter now opens: a democratic Festival, open to all yet grounded in excellence, with an interdisciplinary programme and extraordinary artists alongside new talents, where innovation and identity move forward together, supported by new partnerships. A path that, in Cipriani’s words, will allow the Festival to continue being an ideal city, where art unites worlds towards a shared future.
No previews of the programme were offered, which will instead be unveiled at an official press conference. There was only a hint of major opening and closing events—respectively with Opera and the final concert—and of an ambitious advanced training project for young people, the Festival dei Due Mondi Academy. The edition will involve around one thousand artists, many of them international, and will feature a world-class conductor for an unmissable concert on 3 July in Piazza Duomo.
Alongside Cipriani, the stage of the Teatro Caio Melisso Carla Fendi hosted contributions from his artistic collaborators.
For Beatrice Rana, “it is a great honour and a great responsibility to take up the baton of the musical programming of the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, a festival that has seen the greatest musical figures of the twentieth century succeed one another in the ongoing creation and challenge posed by the bridge between two worlds. My hope for this new adventure is to identify, within these two weeks, a prism capable of refracting four different rays: two geographical and two chronological. On the one hand Italy and the rest of the world - with particular attention to the United States - and on the other roots and the avant-garde. These are the Cartesian axes that guided Gian Carlo Menotti’s hands in creating this extraordinary Festival, and I hope that my contribution within the team imagined by Daniele Cipriani may represent another happy chapter in this story.”
Leo Muscato followed, noting that for him it is “a true pleasure to join this team and contribute to the work of such a prestigious institution. Theatre remains the place where the community comes together because it needs to be together: to tell, and to be told, what cannot remain unsaid. It is a space that fills voids, heals wounds and sustains an ongoing dialogue between present, past and future. I love Spoleto and its Festival, and I recognise its value also for the way it has given space not only to artists but to outstanding craftspeople and technicians.”
Alongside the artistic team, remarks were also delivered by Andrea Sisti, President of the Fondazione Festival dei Due Mondi, and Maria Teresa Venturini Fendi, President of the Festival’s Patrons, both expressing their support for the new direction.
“To Daniele Cipriani I extend my warmest wishes for success,” said Andrea Sisti. “I am confident that his experience and vision will carry forward and renew the great tradition of our Festival, in the spirit of excellence and international openness that has always defined it.”
Maria Teresa Venturini Fendi added that “being a patron is important not only for the contribution it provides, but because it embodies a sense of civic duty and social responsibility.”
For the occasion, the stage of the Teatro Caio Melisso Carla Fendi was furnished with seating drawn from some of the Festival’s most celebrated stage designs, including elements from Le Nozze di Figaro (2016) and Don Giovanni (2017), both with sets by Academy Award winners Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo. A detail that created an ideal bridge between the Festival’s history and its new direction, further enriching this widely attended event.
The presence and good wishes of national and local institutions were also significant.
In an official statement, the Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli expressed his support, emphasising that “Daniele Cipriani’s artistic directorship embraces the legacy of his predecessors with a profound sense of continuity, while at the same time providing a momentum capable of projecting the Festival into the future.” The Minister also highlighted the Festival’s social dimension, which remains “a place of participation, inclusion and sharing,” and voiced his confidence in “a new season of excellence, exchange and international vision,” wishing audiences and all those involved an experience rich in inspiration, beauty and participation.
Federico Mollicone, MP and Chair of the Culture Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, who attended the event, stated that “Elevazione spirituale at Spoleto Cathedral, organised by the Festival dei Due Mondi in collaboration with the Archdiocese of Spoleto–Norcia, represents a moment of spirituality that demonstrates how culture can take root in communities and enhance symbolic places. Congratulations to the new Artistic Director Daniele Cipriani for his vision and the Festival’s new course, aimed at enhancing historical and cultural heritage on an international scale and strengthening ties with the city. I reaffirm my commitment to supporting artistic initiatives that combine excellence, attention to the local territory and the international promotion of cultural identity.”
Finally, the President of the Umbria Region, Stefania Proietti, in a message included in the event programme, welcomed the new direction, noting that it “clearly signals an intention to enhance the Festival’s cultural brand and to strengthen the bond with the city that gave birth to one of the world’s most renowned cultural events.”