Kenneth Zammit Tabona writes...
I was very sad to learn of the death of Alfredo Spiteri-Mallia.
In my lifelong love affair with the Manoel Theatre I have met up with many people, some still with us and some long gone, but I am sure that the Manoel habitués and aficionados will agree with me that Alfredo loved the theatre with a passion that remains unmatched and that, for his contribution to keep opera going in the most adverse of circumstances, he deserves to be decorated, albeit posthumously.
Because, hitherto, the Manoel Theatre Management Committee, as it was called, was a political appointment, Alfredo and I were in and out of it like cuckoo clocks according to the whims and fancies of the minister or parliamentary secretary of the day, irrespective of party. Despite this, he was always around the corner ready to trip over from Vincenti Buildings to assist in any way he could irrespective of whether he was on the committee or not.
Whether it was by choosing and providing the velvet for the theatre curtain, pacifying some diva or by bringing in a silver teapot as an opera prop, Alfred was indispensible. What he didn’t know about opera is not worth knowing. It was his life.
More Italian than the Italians, our peregrinations into the land of Dante and Verdi in search of singers was punctuated by his consternation at the misunderstandings, often hilarious, as a result of my rather anglicised schoolboy Italian. I will never forget his look of utter horror when referring to the orchestra pit as il buco dell’orchestra!
Three weeks in Arezzo in 1997, with him, putting on Don Pasquale with conductor Alessandro Sangiorgi and director Aldo Tarabella was a wonderful and unforgettable experience. I had designed the sets and the costumes in this Manoel Theatre production, which we premiered in the Teatro Petrarca with the then Manoel Theatre Orchestra with Lydia Caruana in the role of Norina!
Always the perfect gentleman, he always treated me rather like a promising but wayward nephew who needed special guidance and he used to do it in a way that was so delicate and circumspect and, above all, affectionate, that one never minded.
Alfredo’s experience with the Impresa Cantoni in the 1950s and 1960s ensured that the pre-war operatic tradition was carried over to us, if by the skin of our teeth.
I came across a programme of the Radio City opera season with no fewer than 15 operas being performed back to back! He and the famous Ineż Casha, known as La Sole, with her dazzling diamante spectacles and strappy gowns were part of the Manoel scenario as I remember it in my youth. They were both products of a gentler age that had been all but destroyed in the ruins of the Royal Opera House. Alfred lived for the day that the opera house would be restored to its former glory. I simply cannot imagine how deeply disappointed and upset he must be by what has resulted.
There would have been nobody happier than he to know that, through thick and thin and with ever-reducing subsidies, the Manoel’s annual opera is giving four performances and that we hope to increase the productions to three.
There are so many instances while on the committee and as opera director I ask myself what Alfredo would have done despite the fact that, because of his infirmities, he has not been around at the Manoel for several years. We owe so much to him by way of experience and I simply could not let his passing go unmourned and unsung.
I am sure that on some woolly cloud, sipping Lavazza coffee, Alfredo is in deep conversation with Verdi, Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini listening to Callas singing Casta Diva under the watchful eye of Dante whose Circolo he was president of for so long.
To his sister, Rosemary, and her family I offer my sincere condolences.
May he rest in peace.