Seventeen days of music, art, opera, dance, cinema and drama with over 120 different performances and the presence of many big names make up this 56^th edition of the Spoleto Festival,  the famous arts event in the beautiful Umbrian town founded  in 1958 by visionary composer GianCarlo Menotti. This year's programme is a confirmation of Menotti’s successful original formula that created a meeting ground for different cultures as well as a celebration of the classical and a launch-pad for experimental forms of new theatre and art. A novelty this year is the inclusion of new digital platforms and social networks in order to share content, messages and testimonies about the festival. Under the relatively new direction of Giorgio Ferrara who took over from the Menotti family after the death of festival founder, the festival seems to defy the current financial crisis with a stellar programme featuring the likes of Robert Wilson who directs Mikhail Barishnikov and Willem Dafoe in Daniil Kharms’ The old Woman, of Luca Ronconi who stages Pornography by Gombrowicz, of Peter Stein with Harold Pinter’s The homecoming. The calendar continues with the presence of Isabella Rossellini, Adriana Asti, Raphael Gualazzi, Anna Galiena and Sebastiano Lomonaco and with New York choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s new company as well as the return to the stage of ballerina Alessandra Ferri. The programme features the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala that pays tribute to Verdi and Wagner. For booking and information tel. 0743776444, www.festivaldispoleto.com.