Friday, 3rd July 2009
Opera house site plans not good enough (1)
Like a good many others who go to plays and concerts all the year round, I have serious doubts whether Renzo Piano's design for the opera house site, with all its expensive state-of-the-art equipment, will be worth the expense and the bother. The open air theatre is meant to be used in spring/summer when we are mostly unlikely to have rain, but when inevitably we suffer the deafening explosions of petards produced by the festa maniacs with whom we are plagued, not to mention planes landing and taking off at Luqa and the multitudinous noises Maltese youths are so fond of producing especially in the summer months.
Can anyone do something to repel these great enemies of serious music and theatre-making in this or indeed any other Maltese open air venue? Francis Zammit Dimech, who has argued so strongly and so pluckily for a normal enclosed theatre on the site, is suggesting a removable roof for Mr Piano's theatre.
This would protect performers and audiences from wind and flying dust but not from Malta's infernal noise. Malta is no longer the Malta of the 1950s and 1960s when the redoubtable Warren sisters at MADC could get on the phone to the local air officer in command and get him to delay planes' departures that would have polluted the performance of open air Shakespeare at San Anton. Even they, however, could do nothing to change the dates of the nearby Balzan festa, but at least they could change the dates of the MADC performances so as to avoid that one festa. How can one avoid festas if one has a theatre programme that goes on for months in the festa season? Can Edward de Bono's lateral thinking provide us with a solution?
To mention a different matter, what is going to happen to car parking in Valletta when the Palace Square, Freedom Square and the Yellow Garage area in the ditch below City Gate can no longer take any cars? I presume that those demigods, the members of Parliament, will still have special parking facilities, but what about their humble worshippers? What about the 1,200 people who will defy festa noise by attending a performance in Mr Piano's theatre? Will they all have to bus in, or will Austin Gatt and the Valletta Local Council draw out new car parks from their top hats?
Mr Piano has come up with some exciting concepts, but the politicians must now show us that they definitely know how these concepts will be applied in a manner that will make people's lives a little better.
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Comments
I think that the designs, are a disgrace to the opera house. - even the fact that it won't have a roof, doesn't make sense.
and the design looks flimsy, like a Strong wind can blow it down.
I think they should restore what's left of it or attempt to rebuild it all, or at least the outer walls.
the interior doesn't have to be the same.
What is the government thinking? it doesn't even fit the location.
otherwise, they should restore all the buildings which are situated around it. - its bad enough that it's used as a parking garage.
It is convenient to dismiss the desire of having the old theatre rebuilt as a mere sentimentalist whim. Or is it as Blaise Pascal once said, a question of ‘the heart having its own reason which reason does not know’. After all, it is a universal sentiment, for many countries have rebuilt their destroyed opera houses as they were.
The most important reason that militates against the idea of having an open air theatre is that it may generate a permanent state of disorder in the streets around the theatre not much different from that which occurs during carnival time. It is then that any bright ideas the designer may have had are forgotten and accretions such as scaffolding, lighting, banners, etc., become permanent eyesores. It is also hoped that the theatre does not become a site for disco-like manifestations.
Edward de Bono does impress me with his ability to listen. Seriously listen, totally understand and then comment in one sentence that makes a huge difference in the listener is in a receptive mode.
Rather than associating the man with Lateral Thinking, I feel that we could benefit very much if we understood his ‘Six Value Medals’
http://www.debonoconsulting.com/Six_Value_Medals.asp
Jovan Mizzi
1) Someone is trying to put it down our throats that the old Opera House site,a sixty year old war ruin, is a historical monument. One comment even tried to pass it as a monument to our civilian casualties. The first is nonsense and the second borders on blasphemy.
2) Piano's plans for this site is a pure and simple embellishment exercise of an otherwise useless site. Why didn't Piano stick to his original plans for the site that included the rebuilding of a multipurpose hall?
We already have an open air theatre at the Ta Qali National Park and it is hardly ever used for the same very valid reasons brought by Dr Pau Xuereb in this letter.
The Nationalist government was dead set against building an opera house/concert hall on the site leaving Valletta the only capital city in the civilised world unable to host large scale operas, ballet performances and orchestral concerts.
One final comment. There is a thing called cultural tourism.
An opera house/concert hall designed by Renzo Piano is a much bigger tourist attraction than a parliament building designed by him.
"Rather then a theater, this monstrosity looks more like an unfinished building site."
That's why you weren't asked to design the theatre yourself. The second we have something innovative and fresh in Malta, people like you try to shoot it down.
Rather then a theater, this monstrosity looks more like an unfinished building site.
Will the public be given the chance to air its vies before decisions are taken?
Hardly likely, given the deadline and the want for completion (for obvious reasons) within Dr. Gonzi's term of office. Definitely not a case of PIANO, PIANO!!!