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Tony C. Cutajar: Popular Operas in the Maltese Islands. Faraxa, 2013. 184 pp.
I am not sure to whom this book is addressed. Much of it consists of an act-by-act synopsis of the 20 operas forming its subject, when most opera lovers seeking information about them can find it very easily on the internet.
Cutajar’s list of operas is limited to operas described as popular in Malta and Gozo, but the reader is warned that an opera’s popularity is gauged by the number of seasons it has been performed since the early decades of the 19th century.
This means that operas like La Favorita and Ernani are included simply because they were often performed in the 19th century and part of last century, whereas they have been rarely performed in Malta since the end of World War II.
We are no longer spoilt for opera performances in this country, so even great favourites like La Traviata and Rigoletto have not been performed more than 20 to 30 times since 1945. But I find it difficult, for instance, to regard Ernani as popular in the past 60 years, when over this period it has been performed, according to Alfred Miceli’s history of opera in Malta, just once in a concert version.
Apart from a very satisfactory synopsis, the author gives each opera a short introduction about when it was written and its early success or failure
Apart from a very satisfactory synopsis, the author gives each opera a short introduction about when it was written and its early success or failure, both overseas and in Malta.
He is technically correct when he refers to the Manoel Theatre as the Royal Opera House, until it was superseded by Barry’s Royal Opera House (Teatru Rjal) in 1866. But he would have been more helpful had he inserted an explanatory note, indicating that the Manoel Theatre title (Teatru Rjal) was adopted only after 1866.
Cutajar lists each opera’s most loved arias or ensembles, which he describes rather oddly as the opera’s “best selections”. The photographs he supplies of scenes from Maltese productions of the 1950s, and one or two later ones, are too small to be pictorially interesting. Other illustrations are portraits of opera composers, from Rossini to Puccini and Mascagni.
He provides a short introduction with a very sketchy history of opera, sometimes giving a mere listing of names. The short section referring to last century omits the names of at least two very important composers: Richard Strauss and Benjamin Britten.
His short, but useful, biblio-graphy could have included that remarkable reference work, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, edited by Stanley Sadie.