The festival is now only a shadow of it former self when Spoleto was Italy's most famous festival under the guidance of Giancarlo Menotti.

Opera. Its once excellent opera programme has been reduced to two days (27 and 29 June) and three short (but certainly unusual) works for a solo soprano, La Morte de Cleopatra by Berlioz, La Dame de Montecarlo by Poulenc and Erwartung by Schonberg.

Dance. The usual Gala di Danza is on 8 July, the Paul Taylor Dance Company (11-12 July) and the San Francisco Ballet (4-6 July).

Music. This sections features the almost-daily Concerti al Chiostro and Concerti di Mezzogiorno.

Theatre. Love Letters (5 July). Benoit Lavigne directs Gérard Depardieu and Anouk Aimée in A.R. Gurney's play, which has been produced on Broadway, adapted for film, and performed variously by actors such as Elizabeth Taylor, Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver. Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner look back over 50 years worth of letters containing their ambitions and dashed hopes, ups and downs. In French, with Italian supertitles.

A new development this year is that 5,000 tickets costing €1 go on sale from 2 June, but the qualifying criteria will exclude most English speakers.