There can be few guided tours of art-rich central Italy that profit from a
guide as skilled and knowledgeable as expatriate artist Neil Moore
(www.neilmoore.it) (www.neilmoore.it). For 12 years, he and his
musically-trained wife, Carol Searle, have been living with their young
family in a medieval village overlooking some of the most beautiful
landscape in Umbria. For the past six, they have been running their highly
acclaimed Living Italy cultural tours based in the nearby village of
Montefalco. Each July, they offer music-lovers the opportunity to join them
in Umbria with a special 16-night program centred around the celebrated
Spoleto Festival held in the eponymous picturesque town nearby.
Founded in 1958 and still directed by Gian Carlo Menotti, who turned 89
during the 2000 season, the festival remains one of the most prestigious
arts festivals in the world. As music and art aficionados from around the
world descend on this dramatically situated hilltown with its fortress,
cathedral and Roman theatre, the village streets and centuries-old buildings
provide spectacular backdrops for outstanding performances by international
companies, ensembles and soloists performing a stimulating repertoire of
familiar and contemporary works.
Operas, performances of orchestral, chamber and choral music as well as
instrumental recitals, dance and theatre are performed in a wonderful range
of intimate venues, such as small churches, basilicas and 18th-century
theatres.
Celebrated English conductor Richard Hickox, Spoleto’s musical director for
many years, chooses and conducts the festival’s major opera as well as
several of the great outdoor concerts in the superb Piazza del Duomo with
the stunning cathedral as a backdrop.
Although the 2001 festival program is not released until just weeks before
its opening, Living Italy always manages to reserve good seats for tour
participants to at least five major performances.
To further enrich the festival program, Living Italy enlists the assistance
of Robert Gay, one of Australia’s most exciting lecturers specialising in
music history and opera, who himself has escorted more than 20 memorable
musical tours to the great cultural centres of Europe and North America. He
prepares and enlightens participants with educative and entertaining talks
prior to specific performances.
The Spoleto Festival dovetails in beautifully with Living Italy’s concept of
wonderful art in its natural setting. For while Neil Moore
(www.neilmoore.it) (www.neilmoore.it) is a practising albeit self-taught
artist with a degree and lecturing background in fine arts, his passion is
ancient and medieval history. He has twice been a finalist for the Moran
portrait awards. His striking version of his four-year-old son, Leandro, is
currently touring Australia as part of the travelling Moran exhibition.
It is just this combination of a solid theoretical training with the
insights of a practitioner that makes him such an effective art guide in the
context of the Living Italy cultural tours. And there is certainly no
shortage of great art in the area with the frescos of Giotto in the Basilica
of San Francesco in Assisi, the Apocalypse of Signorelli in Orvieto, Filippo
Lippi's beautiful decorations in the Duomo of Spoleto and sundry work by
other masters like Perugino, Raphael, Pinturicchio and Gozzoli, not to
mention the superb Galleria Nazionale in Perugia with masterpieces by Fra
Angelico and Piero della Francesca – all within easy distance of Montefalco.
Carol and Neil are so conversant with the rich Umbrian lifestyle in all its
facets, they have also incorporated in the tour several ‘must do’ aspects
quite outside the arts world as well – such as truffle hunting in a forest
in the Apennine mountain range near Spoleto, a winery tasting of the
excellent local fruity red Sagrantino wine and a visit to the small but
exceptional Torgiano Wine Museum. And of course there’s always time to sit
by the pool at the comfortable Fabrizi Estate, to read a good book or just
contemplate the amazing Umbrian countryside laid out in the valley below.
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