Born On This Day- July 7th... Gian Carlo Menotti

I should be tossing this out for my friend Will in New Hampshire who is a designer, librettist & opera historian.

Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-born American composer & librettist who wrote the classic Christmas opera- Amahl & The Night Visitors among 24 other operas intended to appeal to popular taste. He won 2 Pulitzer Prizes: The Consul (1950) & The Saint of Bleecker Street (1955).

He was born 100 years ago today in Italy. Menotti began writing songs when he was 7 years old. When he was 11 years old, he wrote both the libretto & music for his first opera & started his formal musical training at Milan's Verdi Conservatory in 1923.

After the death of his father, Menotti & his mother immigrated to the USA, & he enrolled at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music. His classmates included Leonard Bernstein & Samuel Barber who became Menotti's partner in life & in work.


In 1958, he founded the Festival of 2 Worlds in Spoleto, Italy; he founded its companion festival in Charleston, South Carolina in 1977. For 3 weeks each summer, Spoleto is visited by nearly a half-million people. These festivals were intended to bring opera to a popular audience & helped launch the careers of young artists including choreographers Twyla Tharp & Paul Taylor. He left Spoleto USA in 1993 to take the helm of the Rome Opera.

In 1984 Menotti was awarded the Kennedy Center Honor for achievement in the arts. In addition to composing his own work, on themes of his choosing, he also wrote the libretto, cast & directed his own productions.

Menotti died on February 1, 2007 at the age of 95 in a hospital in Monaco, where he had a home. He announced that it would be 'naughty' to die in Monte Carlo.