If the walls retract, why not the roof? (1)

I have been reported in The Times (March 6) to have expressed myself "against the concept of an open-air theatre". It would have been absurd had I done so.

The concept has been proven to be viable from at least classical Greek times and I myself wrote my last two libretti for operas by Charles Camilleri specifically for open-air venues: Zebra for the Palace Courtyard and Elisabeth; or to be a Mann for the Valletta Waterfront. Moreover, the latter was performed in a very site-specific installation-like setting by Norbert Attard, with video-projections on the bastion walls. That is partly why I protested against the claim that the Piano project was some absolute, technological novelty for Malta.

I never objected to the "open-air" concept meaning essentially airy (as opposed to ponderous) light (as opposed to grave) which is typically Piano-style architecture. On the contrary, I merely queried why the brilliant opening-and-closing panel system, employed for the sides of the theatre space to keep out sound and light interference, was not complemented by some similar device on top. All the rightly vaunted joys and beauties of the project as it now stands would be preserved, since the cover would only be used when needed, but would permit all-the-year programming and also emergency remedial action in case misfortunes threaten to happen, such as the downpour of rain that hit the performance by the etoile Dupriez-Flamand in her performance at Fort St Angelo in mid-August, the artificial thunder of fireworks, and so on.

Of course, modifications of the upward-tapering poles as at present envisaged would have to be made, but I know that an aesthetically satisfying solution can be found by Piano's team if only the client was convinced that cost-benefit analysis justified it. I meant initially to protest also against the reporters of this paper referring to me as "a long-standing PN strategist" because I thought that appellative, even if it were true, was irrelevant. But I suddenly realised that my suggestion was so clearly more electorally popular that it must have occurred to your reporters that it was appropriate to hint obliquely at this fact, even though I had not suggested it, but had restricted myself to exclusively cultural considerations.

I, therefore, completely agree with Sir Cameron Mackintosh's appreciation of the aesthetic qualities of Renzo Piano's design, and note that the negative observations he is quoted to have made refer essentially to the ideas of those who speak for rebuilding Edward Middleton Barry's Opera House and not to what Mr Piano-admirers like myself are saying. Similarly, Mr Piano himself is obviously right in excluding the possibility of a Metropolitan scale opera house, but that is far from what is being suggested here, which is nothing but Mr Piano's original idea of a multi-functional, flexible structure, technologically supple enough to allow the possibility of conversion according to circumstances from an open although sign-marked space to a temporarily and lightly covered performance area.