QUICK TAKES - May 23, 2009

Even in bad times, the show must go on: The Spoleto Festival USA opened in Charleston, S.C., Friday with a brass fanfare and tributes to 80-year-old Charles Wadsworth, who retires this year after directing chamber music at Spoleto festivals for half a century.

“We all know that these are tough times for America in general and the arts in particular,” actress Jane Alexander, a former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, told 1,000 people gathered outside City Hall to launch the festival, which runs until June 7.

This year’s Spoleto budget is $6.2 million -- down from $8.4 million last year in yet another sign of the nation’s recession. But Alexander brushed aside the economic gloom as she declared, “Charleston today is a celebration.”

This is “a day that marks the beginning of a brief time when we can all set worry aside and let ourselves be transported by the beauty and the passion of artistic performances,” she added.