The last of 16 activities in this year’s Gaulitana Festival consisted of semi-staged excerpts from two popular musicals.
Gaulitana’s junior choir sang by heart, were always on cue and were word perfect- Albert Storace
The event, held at Hotel Kempinski, San Lawrenz, was well-attended and was a suitable grand finale to this annual cultural event.
The festival’s energetic artistic director, Colin Attard, with his brother Stephen accompanying on the piano, conducted the Gaulitanus Choir and soloists together with guest soloist soprano Emma Darling. The narration was slickly done by Sharona Refalo.
The multi-faceted role played by bass-baritone Terry Shaw was an important element which contributed to the evening’s success.
He devised the evening’s programme, was its artistic director, played the king in the selection from The King and I and was excellent at standing in for Paul Barnes, one of the soloists in Oliver! Barnes had to be hospitalised a day or two before.
The disciplined choir knew their stuff very well, while the role performed by Gaulitana’s junior choir was pretty striking.
They were the king’s children in The King and I and the gang of pickpockets in Oliver! They sang by heart, were always on cue and were word perfect.
Perhaps a little more volume could have been coaxed out of them but to say they are promising as an ensemble is an understatement.
The selection from Rodgers and Hammerstein included some of the show’s perennial favourites.
Emma Darling: soprano, artist, poet and writer is truly talented. Her versatility in character interpretation supported by a voice on top form made numbers such as I Whistle A Happy Tune, Hello Young Lovers and Getting To Know You among the evening’s highlights.
The respectable governess had the king in a whirl and proved it in the very fine duets Shall We Dance, preceded by Song Of The King.
Shaw gave an excellent interpretation of Puzzlement. Marthese Borg made a very creditable Lady Thiang, especially in Something Wonderful and with the ladies’ chorus in Western People Funny.
In their duets, Patricia Buttigieg as Tuptim had the edge in voice control and projection on Joseph Buttigieg as Lun.
In the selection from Lionel Bart’s Oliver!, chosen to celebrate the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’s birth, there was a fine start with Oliver (Mikaela Bajada) and the boys singing Food, Glorious Food.
Darling was great in her role interpretation and vocal prowess, showing the different facets of Nancy’s character in numbers such as It’s A Fine Life with the Artful Dodger (Diana Formosa), Oliver and Bet (Stephanie Portelli); in the bawdy Oom-Pah-Pah with chorus and the passionately serious and moving As Long As He Needs Me.
Shaw doubled well as Mr Bumble: vain, pompous, venal (in Boy For Sale) and ‘naughty’ as the rascal Fagin.
His duet with Widow Corney (Judy Metters) showed how the conniving widow was heartlessly willing to sell Oliver while playing the coy, simpering object of Bumble’s amorous attentions so well in I Shall Scream.
Shaw was the utter cynic in Pick A Pocket Or Two. His number with the boys showed a sense of practicality and humanity in Reviewing The Situation, only for him to decide to stick to a life of crime.
Dodger, Nancy, Oliver, Bet and Fagin’s quintet came across well in Be Back Soon.
In That’s Your Funeral, Joseph Buttigieg and Josianne Callus as the Sowerberry couple were convincing as heartless, grasping cynics, with both on good vocal form.