Voices of the people on the Opera House (1)

Renzo Piano has given the Prime Minister the Parliament building he wanted. He will, undoubtedly, provide a fitting entrance to Valletta worthy of its fortified-city status. He has spoken about gardens for the enjoyment of the people. But he is depriving lovers of culture and the arts of the theatre they have been hoping to get for over 60 years.

He has said that "we keep the soul of the Opera House... the only thing that this is not going to be is a building with a roof". No, Sig. Piano, the soul of the old Opera House will not rest in a building without a roof. A roofless building is just an open space with seats around it, an arena, a stadium, and we have enough of these to serve our purpose. We have even put a roof over the courtyard of the Knights Hall to obtain something resembling a theatre, though that could never quite fulfil the function of the Opera House.

It has become fashionable to treat the "ruins" of the Opera House as if they were the sacred remains of our glorious ancestors, and now they are to be incorporated into the new "theatre". They are nothing of the sort. They are just a shameful reminder of the inability, or unwillingness, of our governments to restore that which should rightfully belong to the Maltese people in general, and to Valletta in particular. If those stones have a place at all, it is in the sort of building to which they originally belonged. That is why they were preserved in the first place.

Facing a barrage of opposition when he said that Parliament would be built on the Opera House site, the Prime Minister said that nothing was cast in stone. Let us hope that this is still the case.