Get Out of Town 

Bands you've never heard of are converging on the Center City with their heavy metal, their leathers, their gladrags and their cowboy hats for NASCAR's annual Speed Week celebration. Whether you join the teeming crowds on Tryon Street, surrendering to the redneck carnival ambiance, or whether you merely approach within a two-mile radius of the Square, you will hear these bands before they leave.

Men and women of Charlotte don't have to worship grown men who proudly wear caps sporting the logos of beers that go for 40 cents a can. There is an alternative to wading through a sea of empties while gaping at souped-up cars promoting Home Depot and Viagra.

But not nearby. You need to hop into your escape vehicle and head for Spoleto Festival USA -- and its faithful sidekick, Piccolo Spoleto -- down in Charleston through June 11.

SPOLETO FESTIVAL USA

Now preparing to unveil its 30th edition, Spoleto was brought to the Port City by opera composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who had founded the original Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, way back in 1958. Instantly, the festival brought a new infusion of continental charm to a city whose artistic associations stretched no further than Catfish Row, replicating the Italian festival's mix of opera, symphony, chamber music and dance onstage -- with a side order of visual arts.

Old World elegance and conservatism were also in Menotti's formula, with the occasional spice of subversive edginess, exciting emerging artists and prestigious American and World premieres. It's so right that new history should be made along the cobbled streets of this conscientiously preserved city.

Arthur Miller, Philip Glass, Kurt Weill, Ottorino Respighi and Athol Fugard are among the elite who have had their work premiered at Spoleto. Modern American musical styles also have found their voice. Ella Fitzgerald, Abbey Lincoln, Joe Williams, Sarah Vaughan, Dave Brubeck, Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Gary Burton, Woody Herman and Dianne Reeves are among the jazz royalty who have jammed.

Country music was expelled from the festival lineup after 1981. Eventually, jazz became a sticking point between Menotti and Spoleto USA, and there was an artistic parting of the ways in 1993. While that hasn't thrown open the doors to folkies or even pensioner rockers, the once-contentious jazz sector has blossomed, dance has set up a grassroots outpost alongside the expected ballet troupes, and theater programming has been enriched with smaller guerilla groups and solo performance artists.

The envelope keeps stretching. DJ Spooky's multimedia Rebirth of a Nation besieged Charleston in 2004, and Savion Glover tapped Spoleto to submission with his Improvography in 2005.

Ready for some hip-hop theater? This year, Danny Hoch brings his polymorphic powers and his New York attitude down South for a chameleonic evening at Emmett Robinson Theatre. Hoch is that rare performance artist whose name is spoken in the same breath as Eric Bogosian, Whoopi Goldberg and Lily Tomlin.

Rhapsodic romance also beckons down at Spoleto with the grandly operatic Romeo et Juliette by Charles Gounod at Gailliard Auditorium and a stage version of Tristan at Dock Street Theatre. Mozart gets a pleasing nod during his 250th birthday year with a reprise of last year's intensely sensual Don Giovanni, environmentally staged at moldering Meminger Auditorium.

If a romantic getaway isn't your style, you and your family can all run away to the circus. Created in 1986 at Spoleto, Circus Flora is celebrating its 20th anniversary with an explosion of clowning, acrobatics, musicians, animals and the world-famous Flying Wallendas. But you'll need to hurry, hurry, hurry. Circus Flora begins camping out at Ansonborough Field on Thursday night and ends its limited engagement next Tuesday.

THEATER

Hoch isn't the whole show. Long before he arrives during the final week with Hip-Hop Theatre (June 8-11), Kneehigh Theatre will take up residence at storied Dock Street Theatre with the American premiere of the production that wowed London audiences at National Theatre, Tristan and Yseult (May 26-June 11). Wagner notwithstanding, this familiar story of love potions, jealousy, unquenchable passion and noble sacrifice has its origins on the coast of Cornwall, so this Cornish company's revival returns the love legend to its roots.

Meanwhile, Spoleto will be staging a world premiere of its own, uniting pioneering Asian director Ong Ken Sen with Japanese kabuki ace Gojo Masanosuke, computer sound artist Toru Yamanaka and African American actress Karen Kandel. At Robinson Theatre, Geisha (May 26-30) promises to blend ancient tradition with contemporary style. The exotic, enticing result is already scheduled for a July rendezvous in Lincoln Center.

DANCE

Nobody who has given even superficial notice to the modern dance scene will fail to recognize that Paul Taylor Dance Company (May 27-28) is the headliner. If recent PT sojourns at Spoleto have been a tad frivolous, the troupe's unquestioned virtuosity will now be unleashed upon Promethean Fire, Taylor's response to 9/11 -- and Stokowski's mighty orchestration of Bach's Toccata. On the other hand, Three Epitaphs promises to deliver some sophisticated wit, and Oh, You Kid! will whisk us back to the era of flappers and ragtime.

While PT is galvanizing Gaillard, the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble -- a group of dancers and musicians who live and study together in their own utopian "dance village" -- will timeshare the Robinson (May 27-31). Their new piece, Sacred Space, showcases the odissi style of Indian dance, blending sensual, ecstatic and ritual elements of the Hindi.

The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company brings its distinctive brand of agitprop to Sottile Theatre (June 1-3), their third appearance at Spoleto. Canadian choreographer Aszure Barton brings an equally wild mixture to Robinson as her company, ASzURe & Artists (June 1-4), perform Lascilo Perdere. Besides Barton's erotic dancers, filmed images are ladled on top of sacred and secular selections of Vivaldi's vocal music -- including De Profundis played by the Cracow Klezmer Band!

JAZZ

Soul is the theme as Solveig Slettahjell (May 26-27) makes her US debut amid the crickets and magnolias at the lush outdoor setting of the Cistern under the stars. We're sorry to report that Kurt Elling has grown so ripe in repute that his swinging session, "Elling Sings Sinatra/Sings Elling," now must move indoors to the more mundane Gaillard Auditorium (June 2). A 17-piece band joins Elling in his traversal of choice Old Blue Eyes charts.

Wachovia Jazz guru Michael Grofsorean has a special affinity for the Brazilian scene, so if your heart and feet respond to the bossa beat, you're likely to treasure Grofsorean's latest finds, composer-singer-guitarist Sergio Santos at the Cistern (June 3) and, in his US debut, guitar virtuoso Marcus Tardelli at the Robinson (June 7-10).

Old school? Join me and the Hank Jones Trio at the stately Sottile (May 29).

OPERA

If their voices are even half as gorgeous as their headshots, you'll want to hear tenor Frederic Antoun and soprano Nicolle Cabell at Gaillard Auditorium in Romeo et Juliette (May 26, 29, June 3, 9). Gounod was probably the first to make such a fuss over Mercutio's Queen Mab soliloquy, long before Prokoviev jumped overboard with her in his R&J ballet. Waltzes, choruses and, of course, tortured love duets are also among the musical highlights.

MUSIC

If you like Mozart, you'll particularly cherish the lunchtime Bank of America Chamber Music Concerts (May 26-June 11) this year. Every one of the 11 concert programs will contain at least one Wolfie morsel, introduced by the personable Charles Wadsworth, and played by the usual suspects. With the St. Lawrence String Quartet back at the Dock Street, along with pianists Wendy Chen and Jeremy Denk, clarinetist Todd Palmer and flutist Tara O'Connor, you can expect the full range of chamber repertoire to be explored -- with an occasional splash of harpsichord from Wadsworth himself.

We'll admit that the modernistic Music in Time series (May 27, June 3, 6, 10) has looked -- and sounded -- in past years like a cooking show. But with heavyweight composers John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Philip Glass, Pierre Boulez and Kaija Saariaho in this year's lineup, the music-to-noise ratio figures to improve. Particularly on June 10, when the series moves out of its customary clean room Recital Hall at Albert Simons for the first time and into Grace Episcopal Church. That earmarks the Glass-Saariaho program as extra special.

Always at the chaste Grace, the 5pm Intermezzi concerts (May 28, 29, June 1, 4, 5, 9) showcase the young virtuosi of the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in programming that is every bit as wide-ranging, adventurous and euphonious as the lunchtime chamber fare. Minus the Wadsworth banter -- and you do need to arrive early and scramble for the best general admission seats.

CIRCUS BY THE SEA

OK, so maybe the racy, amoral Don Giovanni and Philip Glass's Symphony #3 aren't the epitome of family-friendly fare. Spoleto is packaging a combo ticket that gives children of all ages (12 is the price borderline) a seat at Circus Flora and a visit to the nearby South Carolina Aquarium between May 23 and May 30.

So do it. Run away.

REVIEW

Here's a lesson in self-promotion. If you're writing headlines for yourself, be sure they're flattering. Back in January, when she was introducing the first CPCC Opera Theatre production at Halton Theater, Carmen, Rebecca Cook-Carter promised her audience that she was going on a major weight-loss program. So that when she returned in May as Cio-Cio San, she would truly be Madama Butterfly and not Madama Butterball.

Cook-Carter had to eat her words last weekend, no doubt cursing the pasta she secretively devoured over the intervening months, as she donned Cio-Cio's pure white wedding dress. To her credit, Cook-Carter's acting and heartfelt singing often had me forgetting that she had long since passed the ages of 15 and 18 -- and that her wedding dress might shelter a Cirque du Soleil performance.

Also riding this conquering wave of Puccini melody was superannuated tenor Christopher Cameron as the young and heartless Lt. Pinkerton. Best all around, in terms of singing and casting, were John Fortson as the Bonze and Kate Jackson as Suzuki, two meaty comprimario roles.

Scenery by Julie Landman, costumes by Kristine Fisher and lighting by Kim Renz were all a quantum leap beyond CP opera productions of bygone years at Pease Auditorium. So was the powerful orchestral accompaniment led by Craig Bove.