SPOLETO: Talking Gullah, talking Amistad from Dan Conover on Vimeo.

There are plenty of reasons to pay attention to Amistad this season. It’s an opera — which always means a high profile at Spoleto USA — it’s leading things off with this year’s eve-of-the-festival preview, it christens the restored Memminger Auditorium, and the festival staff has clearly invested a lot of energy in building a program of related events around the production.

Earlier today I toted the camera down to Memminger Auditorium for a meet-the-press session with some of the big guns from Amistad. I came away fairly well impressed by the creative commitment I saw on display there. Read the rest of this entry »