On January 12, 2011, soon after her brief visit to Malta, I wrote a reasoned letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to evoke the interest of the German government in rebuilding our destroyed Opera House.

On February 28, 2011, her assistant for bilateral affairs, Christian Nell, wrote me a qualified, slightly evasive and negative reply to my letter.

Our Opera House’s saga goes on endlessly and we haven’t seen the end of it.

Incidentally, I have a somewhat personal interest in seeing the Opera House rise from its ashes of April 1942.

My late father’s uncle, Filippo Vassallo (1831-1897) was responsible for designing the extant plinths decorating the base of this theatre.

Renzo Piano’s addition of Roman columns to the present structure are an exercise in some sense of continuity, but are also an intrusion.

They also relegate the Opera House’s site to that of a cemetery, neither here nor there, neither a fully-fledged theatre nor a second rate cultural centre.

Our present quandary encourages us to rebuild this noble Opera House soon. Let us have faith and let us be bold.

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