A new show called Malta 5D features a sequence showing German planes preparing to bomb the Royal Opera House. According to the report, the theatre was “blasted to shreds”! While this may make good and impressive theatre it is definitely not a historical fact.
We must aim for top quality and not take the sirocco-induced attitude of making do with mediocrity- Kenneth Zammit Tabona
The Royal Opera House was not blasted to shreds but badly damaged. There is a vast difference.
The building was always considered to be salvageable and, for the last seven decades till the great betrayal that came in the form of an open air space, which is going to be of no use to anyone, we had not given up hope that, one day, like a phoenix, the gorgeous neo-baroque opera house, which held its own with established operatic venues like the San Carlo and Covent Garden, would rise again, renewed from the ashes of war.
It seems, however, that this new show has given the final coup de grace. The obliteration of the opera house and its subsequent subtle and not so subtle vilification as a building unsuitable for Valletta because it was not in period has reached mythical proportions and, sadly, people are starting to believe it. Such is the power of spin.
The opera house is even said to have symbolised our colonial past as if it were something to be ashamed of. The fact that both the opera house and Palazzo Ferreria balanced each other out beautifully seems to have escaped the theatre’s denigrators while the reasoning that it was out of period is pure poppycock when one considers what is being erected in Valletta today!
With that out of the way, let me state very clearly here and now that I believe that cities must live and breathe. They must adapt and develop. Having missed the bus long ago to reconstruct the war damage to the level of perfection reached in Dresden or Warsaw, where one is completely unaware of where the original and the reconstruction start and end, we have no choice but to recreate, which is why, in principle, I am very much in favour of having a major world architect like Renzo Piano build our Parliament.
However, I feel that not enough attention has been paid to the Valletta entrance, which looks like a leftover set from Cecil B. de Mille’s The Ten Commandments and the infamous open air space, which provides a travesty of what is needed infrastructurally to put Malta’s blossoming cultural scene on its feet.
The Manoel Theatre, the uncrowned national theatre of Malta, remains, three centuries after its erection by Grandmaster Vilhena, all things to all men, faithfully presenting programme after programme, year after year, of varied disciplines from opera to panto and from high drama to mime, not to mention all sorts of musical variation: orchestral, chamber and instrumental in addition to jazz and even popular music.
The season is indeed far too short to satisfy the demand and to alleviate the situation, which, each year, becomes more dire.
Malta desperately needs a dedicated auditorium for the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, which has long acoustically outgrown the Manoel and a dedicated national theatre for drama, which the poor Manoel’s mostly 18th century facilities simply cannot support. The sooner these are provided the better.
Possibly now that the long overdue decision to roof the MCP car park has been taken we could have what rightly should have been the extension of St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity there in the open between Valletta and Floriana. Aesthetically, an iconic building by a Jean Nouvel or Frank Gehry or even Renzo Piano again would certainly reinforce Malta’s position as the cultural beacon of the Southern Mediterranean.
The possibilities are endless for those who have the vision to foretell the benefits. Look at Bilbao, with its Guggenheim! The city has only been on the list of ‘must sees in Spain’ since Frank Gehry transformed its ambience with his silver structure of juxtaposed planes that look as if they are being buffeted by crosswinds!
With our bid to be European Capital of Culture in the balance I do strongly feel that these infrastructural deficiencies must be addressed. We must aim for top quality and not take the sirocco-induced attitude of making do with mediocrity.
At this juncture, I am so reminded of the parable of the three servants with the talents and, like the employer in the story, become quite incensed when people take the same pessimistic attitude of the servant who buried his.
I would rather gamble and lose my talent rather than have buried it. It is better to have loved and lost than have never to have loved at all, says the adage.
We have a reputation here in Malta of being able to create a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and this is because we believe in ourselves to the extent that we think we are the centre of the universe. This attitude sometimes works against us but it has always been our defence mechanism against oppression.
For two millennia we have been colonials and, yet, by hook or by crook, we have managed to transform ourselves into a sovereign republic and a full member of the EU. Despite the financial crisis that surrounds us, we still manage to thrive. However, it would be sheer folly to denigrate or attempt to obliterate any part of our colonial past as it would be tantamount to razing St John’s Co Cathedral to the ground and then claiming it never existed.