If tangible proof is needed of the manner in which band clubs in Malta have over the years established themselves as a leading cultural and musical force, it will suffice to look back at two seemingly unrelated events concerning the San Filep Band Club of Żebbuġ.
A couple of weeks ago, I was present when a number of its musicians accompanied the town’s foremost literary voice in a ceremonious corteo, as the late Frans Sammut was laid to rest in a solemn and staid style.
Then again, at the auditorium of the University of Malta, I attended the Soiree d’Honneur, featuring the same band club, in honour of yet another celebrated Żebbuġ voice, the soprano Joan Mangion, who was being honoured by her compatriots on the 25th anniversary of her impressive career.
Mangion is one of the musicians who owe their success, in part, to the encouragement and teaching of the local band club with whom she debuted in a concert in 1987. Later in the year, she made her national debut in Donizetti’s Elisir d’Amore, singing her first fully fledged operatic role at the Manoel Theatre.
Besides studying voice at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, and music with Carmelo Pace and Anthony Chircop, Mangion, a consummate musician, also played the double bass for the then National Orchestra for a number of years.
Presented by the golden-voiced Charles Abela Mizzi whose impeccable stage manners make everybody feel as though they are in a French salon of the 17th century, this evening of celebration was certainly planned with its audience in mind.
Richard Bugeja, the band’s resident conductor, included the Żebbuġ anthem (music by Philip Gatt, lyrics by Pawlu Mifsud) together with a popular extract from A San Filippo D’Aggira, the 1920 tribute to the Żebbuġ patron saint penned by Orlando Crescimanno and based on verses by national poet Dun Karm Psaila, who also hailed from Żebbuġ. One could sense the audience’s familiarity with both pieces as many a radiant countenance silently mouthed the well-known lyrics, a feeling I found quite edifying.
While at times a lack of balance in the phrasing between the brass and woodwind sections could be detected, particularly in the Overtures Lustspiel by Bela Albert von Keler and Lonely Mill by Mandel Lancaster, the band came into its own in Intermezzo and Jubilation: Concert Waltz, two of the four works by Richard Bugeja included in the programme.
Clearly a romantic, Bugeja’s colourful compositions are characterised by energy and enthusiasm and were heartily acclaimed by a grateful audience.
Mangion has a voice of prodigious size and purity. Having heard her sing even in the most acoustically unkind venues, I always thought that she sings louder than anyone else, and quite tirelessly too.
The dramatic soprano sailed straight into her first aria of the evening, the poignant Addio Del Passato Bei Sogni Ridenti from Giuseppe Verdi’s Fallen Woman, La Traviata. Mangion gave feeling to this pathetic song of farewell and to all the lovely dreams of the past, even managing to control her forte in the final high-A note, making it sound like the oozing breath of a dying Violetta.
A truly auspicious start.
Mangion’s rendering of Puccini’s enormously popular O Mio Babbino Caro, while sounding a wee bit too forte for the kind of masterly tongue-in-cheek aria this is intended to be, was acclaimed by a thunderous applause repeated soon after for the Habanera, Bizet’s showstopper which establishes Carmen as the passionate yet fickle gypsy girl embodying the kind of fatalism which constantly flirts with death.
The soprano’s habitual involvement with sacred music was acknowledged by her singing of two Ave Marias.
The first penned in Latin by Richard Bugeja in 2005 is pleasant on the ear while the soprano did full justice to the familiar Bach/Gounod version which reminded those of my peers of the days when this work served as our wake-up clarion call on the Rediffusion B switch.
The pleasantly formulated programme designed to whip up nostalgia was cleverly wrought to a fitting climax with two Italian classics. A positively beaming Mangion sailed effortlessly through Cannio’s 1915 O Soldato Innamorato and Ferrilli’s international hit Un Amore Cosi Grande which brought the evening to its rousing finale.
This silver anniversary concert was characterised by a pleasant warmth which permeated the auditorium.
Every time the protagonist finished her song, instead of retreating backstage, as is customarily done, perhaps owing to the lack of stage wings, she sat among the audience while awaiting her next number. Mangion seemed fully confident of having struck gold.