Putting the vows in Maltese vowels
Stanley Borg meets Charles Camilleri and Joe Friggieri and finds that their opera, Il-Weghda, still hits the right notes two decades after it was first staged.
The sun shines with the intense sharpness of a blazer button in the dark, spawning the kind of gutsy, dragging heat that makes getting out of the chill-out zone of an air-conditioned car a prospect so dire that, by comparison, salmonella spiked with ebola looks particularly inviting.
Yet in the shade of the architectural equivalent of an oasis that is a chapel, and under the cool of a tree, which in another age and other circumstances, could very well be the fabled ficus religiosa, Professor Joe Friggieri waits, as if for enlightenment, without breaking into a sweat.
"You know," he tells me, or rather, comments after I have huffed and puffed for the best of five minutes and managed to bench my spine, "I had to interrupt lunch with the Archbishop to make it for this interview". Since I was the one to postpone our interview at the last minute, and then still managed to arrive late, I presume to be the guilty target in his crosshair. Then, as I am about to tell him to come on and be philosophical about it, I realise that that would not work with a Professor of Philosophy, so we slowly make our way to Mro Charles Camilleri's house.
After 22 years, the opera Il-Weghda (The Vow), composed by Mro. Camilleri to a libretto by Prof. Friggieri, is being revived in honour of Mro Camilleri's 75th birthday. When it was first produced on March 11, 1984 in aid of the Dar tal-Providenza, the opera in two acts was received to such acclaim that it was booked solid. Then it was staged five months later at the San Anton Gardens as part of the Malta Arts Festival.
"Il-Weghda was not our first collaboration," says Mro Camilleri. "In fact, we had worked together, in the early 1970s, on Mary Rose Mallia's Ghanjiet minn Malta, just as we did later on Il-Fidwa tal-Bdiewa, which Joe adapted from Ninu Cremona's classic. After Melita, which had a libretto by Ursula Vaughan Williams, Il-Weghda was my second opera. However, it was the first opera to be ever written in Maltese."
"Given our musical tradition at the time," Mro Camilleri adds, "many thought this was madness on my part. Writing in Maltese was yet unheard of, and an unimaginable prospect. Yet I always acted on the belief that language gives you identity, and sounds for thoughts and emotions. We have to celebrate the fact that for such a small island, we have a unique language. And that is fascinating."
"The libretto is based on a short story I had written," adds Prof. Friggieri. "The first act, which takes place in a farmhouse courtyard, opens with the celebrations of the wedding between Sidor, the 50-year-old village schoolmaster, and MarG, a 28-year-old country woman. As the village priest blesses their union and exhorts the newly-wedded to observe their vows, MarG holds hands with Lieni, her seven-year-old daughter from her previous liaison with Nikol. The latter, who had left the village to work in another country, had vowed to MarG that after seven years he would return. Which he does, just in time to see his lover marrying another man. As the drama unfolds, the love for Nikol which MarG has tried to suppress during the years of his absence break loose, and the conflict between the vows of love which she made to Nikol and the vows of law which bind her to Sidor rages."
"The village gossip of the Seksieka and Il-Gara and the delicate, omertà-like balance between knowing and not telling which can be toppled by the outside influence of strangers may recall the past, yet Il-Weghda is timeless. The emotions it pits against each other are basic, raw, perennial. It takes place today, or a hundred years ago," continues Prof. Friggieri. "The political subtext is also still valid. In the Mediterranean, there are endemic problems and nations, states or societies that seem unable to solve their problems. The main conflict between law and love is a tragedy which keeps repeating itself, which is why the final chorale yearns for peace."
The set, designed by artist James Vella Clark, is also inspired by this tension. The 24-foot-wide set consists of three individual panels: one middle panel (13 feet) and two side panels (seven feet each). The skyline is dominated by the traditional cupola and steeple but the rest is a gridiron of black and white straight linear patterns. Mr Vella Clark brings to the set a concept which he is currently exploring in his art: the use of black and white as two opposing forces.
"Since the first production," continues Mro Camilleri, "we have added five danced interludes, representing five different times of day, which are choreographed by Clarissa Borg from Creative Dance Studio. We are also proud that this is an all-Maltese production, with Christopher Muscat directing the Jubilate Deo Choir and the National Orchestra directed by Joseph Debrincat and the leading roles sung by Rosabelle Bianchi, Charles Vincenti, Albert Buttigieg, Noel Galea and Sophia Grech."
"The music, however, remains unchanged. Following the mood, the drama of the plot and its characters - the priest sings in Gregorian lines and the climax unfolds in silence - the musical idiom of Il-Weghda is inherently Maltese, with the sound of the flejguta, zaqq and Maltese folk-tunes which are suggested, rather than quoted. Musically, the final chorale recalls the opening, which again, insists on the timelessness of Il-Weghda."
• Il-Weghda is being presented by the National Orchestra in collaboration with the Manoel Theatre and the participation of the Jubilate Deo Choir and Creative Dance Studio on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. The opera is being aided by the National Lotteries Good Causes Fund.
Yet in the shade of the architectural equivalent of an oasis that is a chapel, and under the cool of a tree, which in another age and other circumstances, could very well be the fabled ficus religiosa, Professor Joe Friggieri waits, as if for enlightenment, without breaking into a sweat.
"You know," he tells me, or rather, comments after I have huffed and puffed for the best of five minutes and managed to bench my spine, "I had to interrupt lunch with the Archbishop to make it for this interview". Since I was the one to postpone our interview at the last minute, and then still managed to arrive late, I presume to be the guilty target in his crosshair. Then, as I am about to tell him to come on and be philosophical about it, I realise that that would not work with a Professor of Philosophy, so we slowly make our way to Mro Charles Camilleri's house.
After 22 years, the opera Il-Weghda (The Vow), composed by Mro. Camilleri to a libretto by Prof. Friggieri, is being revived in honour of Mro Camilleri's 75th birthday. When it was first produced on March 11, 1984 in aid of the Dar tal-Providenza, the opera in two acts was received to such acclaim that it was booked solid. Then it was staged five months later at the San Anton Gardens as part of the Malta Arts Festival.
"Il-Weghda was not our first collaboration," says Mro Camilleri. "In fact, we had worked together, in the early 1970s, on Mary Rose Mallia's Ghanjiet minn Malta, just as we did later on Il-Fidwa tal-Bdiewa, which Joe adapted from Ninu Cremona's classic. After Melita, which had a libretto by Ursula Vaughan Williams, Il-Weghda was my second opera. However, it was the first opera to be ever written in Maltese."
"Given our musical tradition at the time," Mro Camilleri adds, "many thought this was madness on my part. Writing in Maltese was yet unheard of, and an unimaginable prospect. Yet I always acted on the belief that language gives you identity, and sounds for thoughts and emotions. We have to celebrate the fact that for such a small island, we have a unique language. And that is fascinating."
"The libretto is based on a short story I had written," adds Prof. Friggieri. "The first act, which takes place in a farmhouse courtyard, opens with the celebrations of the wedding between Sidor, the 50-year-old village schoolmaster, and MarG, a 28-year-old country woman. As the village priest blesses their union and exhorts the newly-wedded to observe their vows, MarG holds hands with Lieni, her seven-year-old daughter from her previous liaison with Nikol. The latter, who had left the village to work in another country, had vowed to MarG that after seven years he would return. Which he does, just in time to see his lover marrying another man. As the drama unfolds, the love for Nikol which MarG has tried to suppress during the years of his absence break loose, and the conflict between the vows of love which she made to Nikol and the vows of law which bind her to Sidor rages."
"The village gossip of the Seksieka and Il-Gara and the delicate, omertà-like balance between knowing and not telling which can be toppled by the outside influence of strangers may recall the past, yet Il-Weghda is timeless. The emotions it pits against each other are basic, raw, perennial. It takes place today, or a hundred years ago," continues Prof. Friggieri. "The political subtext is also still valid. In the Mediterranean, there are endemic problems and nations, states or societies that seem unable to solve their problems. The main conflict between law and love is a tragedy which keeps repeating itself, which is why the final chorale yearns for peace."
The set, designed by artist James Vella Clark, is also inspired by this tension. The 24-foot-wide set consists of three individual panels: one middle panel (13 feet) and two side panels (seven feet each). The skyline is dominated by the traditional cupola and steeple but the rest is a gridiron of black and white straight linear patterns. Mr Vella Clark brings to the set a concept which he is currently exploring in his art: the use of black and white as two opposing forces.
"Since the first production," continues Mro Camilleri, "we have added five danced interludes, representing five different times of day, which are choreographed by Clarissa Borg from Creative Dance Studio. We are also proud that this is an all-Maltese production, with Christopher Muscat directing the Jubilate Deo Choir and the National Orchestra directed by Joseph Debrincat and the leading roles sung by Rosabelle Bianchi, Charles Vincenti, Albert Buttigieg, Noel Galea and Sophia Grech."
"The music, however, remains unchanged. Following the mood, the drama of the plot and its characters - the priest sings in Gregorian lines and the climax unfolds in silence - the musical idiom of Il-Weghda is inherently Maltese, with the sound of the flejguta, zaqq and Maltese folk-tunes which are suggested, rather than quoted. Musically, the final chorale recalls the opening, which again, insists on the timelessness of Il-Weghda."
• Il-Weghda is being presented by the National Orchestra in collaboration with the Manoel Theatre and the participation of the Jubilate Deo Choir and Creative Dance Studio on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. The opera is being aided by the National Lotteries Good Causes Fund.