Opera on 'dialogue' between Thomas Mann and his daughter

A new work by Charles Camilleri is being premiered this evening at Robert Sammut Centre in Floriana (opposite Sarria church). It is To Be A Mann, a 30-minute opera in five "acts", to a libretto by Peter Serracino Inglott.

It will be performed during a "music festival", one of the events being organised in connection with the meeting in Malta of La Navigation du Savoir, an EU-funded project that researches the maritime heritage of the Mediterranean.

To Be A Mann has only two singers, bass Noel Galea, and soprano Rosabelle Bianchi, and is scored for a chamber ensemble consisting of a violin, clarinet, trumpet, trombone and tuba.

The opera is a dialogue between The Magus (the celebrated German writer Thomas Mann) and Little Girl (Mann's daughter, Elisabeth Mann Borgese). The five three-minute "acts" are each divided into one-minute scenes.

Rev. Professor Peter Serracino Inglott, who has collaborated with Charles Camilleri on many of his compositions (including the successful opera The Maltese Cross), said their brief was to create something to do with the sea. La Navigation du Savoir intends to create a network between historic naval dockyards, including Malta, Villefranche, Barcelona, Pisa, and Tunis.

Fr Peter hit upon the idea of depicting, if briefly, the relationship between Thomas Mann and his youngest daughter Elisabeth, who was later to play, as the founder of the Inernational Ocean Institute in Malta, a major role in supporting Malta's seabed initiative at the United Nations, and organise the Pacem in Maribus conventions which led to the Law of the Sea conference.

Mann, who was 43 when Elisabeth was born, had other children but he was later to say that in Elisabeth's case, it was the first time he experienced fatherhood, since he had been formerly detached from his family. He was used to moulding his children as if they were characters in one of his novels, giving them autonomy later.

However in Elisabeth's case, he wanted to give her his fullest attention.

Fr Peter explained to me that Elisabeth was born in 1918, at a time of great political instability in Germany, leading to the rise of extremist parties on the Left and the Right. The world he described in Buddenbrooks, his greatest novel, was being threatened by Nazis and Communists. He felt cut off from the changes taking place.

So when Elisabeth was born he was sure she was destined to live a world of chaos, symbolised by the sea. The sea eventually would take over the land, upsetting the order of creation. He saw his daughter as bringing order to chaos. He wrote all this in a mock epic poem.

Elisabeth's first reaction was to rebel. She married a man 40 years her senior - Professor Borgese, an authority on Thomas Mann, who taught at the University of Milan. In him she saw the father figure she craved.

In fact Elisabeth's relationship with her father was very cold, and she never had a proper discussion with him.

Elisabeth Mann-Borgese, who died in February 2002, was trained as a musician and musicologist. After her husband died she started writing and carried out research, exploring the different forms of "otherness", such as humans' relationship with animals. She even taught her dog to play the piano, and built a special piano for the purpose!

Elisabeth went on to explore other types of "otherness", such as man's relationship with robots and machines in general.

In 1967 Elisabeth had heard Arvid Pardo, then Malta's permanent representative at the United Nations, make his epoch-making speech about the seabed as the common heritage of mankind. There she got the idea than while her father had used the sea as a symbol of chaos, she saw in the sea something which truly belonged to all mankind, thus leading to co-operation between nations.

She believed that the common ownership of the sea and its resources should lead to common ownership of the land and the institution of a world authority, a world government.

In her book The Oceanic Circle, Elisabeth says that after her father died she realised how much he had inspired her.

All this is brought out in the dialogue between the Magician (as Thomas Mann was called by his children) and Little Girl (Medi, the Bavarian nickname given to Elisabeth).

Tonight's programme at Robert Sammut Centre starts at 7.30 with choral and other vocal music by Joseph Vella, followed by Mediterranean Images for piano, by Charles Camilleri, played by Veronique Zammit. The opera starts at 9 p.m.

Entrance is free.