Spoleto Festival USA began its life in Charleston 40 years ago as an import from Italy. The Italian festival—the Festival of Two Worlds, in Spoleto, Italy — was itself an American idea. Both festivals were founded by Gian Carlo Menotti, an Italian who came to America as a college student and became an extraordinarily successful composer, both of operas and Broadway musicals, winning a Pulitzer Prize for Music twice.

Parenthetically, when Menotti came to America first in 1927, he was subject to the Immigration Act of 1924, which limited the number of Italians who could come to America. Fortunately, he was admitted — America would have been poorer artistically had he not been.