A great lot of good and a little bad

I have just been to the matinée edition of Ġensna on March 31. During the performance I felt it was providential to be watching right on Freedom Day.

I came away reinforced in my pride in being Maltese, as I have always been, and repeatedly thanked God for all that is good and beautiful and Maltese.

There was only one thing that annoyed me as a lover of good music and good singing. The volume of the music was way too loud, to the point where it all but drowned out a choir of scores of singers, and most of the soloists as well.

I will not single out the soloists that were most enjoyable in spite of the loud music, because that is not the point of this letter.

I am not a technical person, but to me at least it is self-defeating to put the drums behind glass or perspex and then install a microphone in the cubicle. There were also times when the bass was too powerful, but in general I would say that the sound engineers should have done a better job all around.

In a patriotic show of the level of Ġensna, both the music and the lyrics are about equally important.

But I could only follow the lyrics because I had taken with me the booklet that I had lovingly kept from the first performance 25 years ago. How many, I wonder, were that fortunate?

If a little birdie could tell me that these comments of mine would be taken serious note of, and something done to make the remaining performances better even in this sense, I would dearly love to go back and watch Ġensna again.

But I have heard there is one big problem born of success: all the thousands of tickets floated have been sold out.

Yes, even the sound engineers have done a good job, but they can yet do it better. So, well done, all!