Grand claims about opera’s viability or otherwise have been voiced in the media of late. Discordant views, aired vociferously by those who cherish this country’s long association with high opera, dissonate with others who debase the argument by citing low attendances, uttering the vilest of words imaginable to this government – subsidies.
Irony, as in opera, runs thick in political grandstanding and Prime Minister Gonzi’s choice of the Italian Renzo Piano to execute the final solution to the opera house is a tragicomedy worthy of its own opera.
The curtain raiser happened many years ago under Gonzi’s mentor, with a design competition captained by none other than the PN’s high priest, Prof. Serracino Inglott who, dithering with frustration, concluded, after scratching his practically bald pate, that none of the designs were up to it.
Slowly, as befits this genre, enters Piano (music shifts to adagio), who draws a modern bridge and hoists himself by his own petard. On landing he is set upon by the conservative forces of this island and is duly sent packing to think again. The Prime Minister orders His Wiliness Dr Austin Gatt to intone some dialectical gibberish to lull the intelligentsia and hike taxes to distract the masses. In the meantime, Piano is ushered in again from the wings wearing a humble smile and, with cocked ear, is whispered to by soothsayer Austin. Gonzi’s choreography is magical as he plucks Mr Fenech, as if out of a hat to expound figures that dismay and shame us all.
Some e90,000 of good tax money taken from the people to entertain the people, two operas put up for us at a BOV festival and hardly anyone showed up; money flushed down the open sewers of culture. Shocking. The audience is hushed, but only for a moment. The tenor takes the stage and Joseph Calleja waxes lyrical on the benefits of opera for his countrymen. His booming voice carries far and wide to the other reaches of the Empire, or was it the Alhambra?
The One News network even interviewed him on prime time One News. (So I’m repeating, so what!) Gonzi is not amused and looks at Austin in despair. His Wiliness orders the usher to press the orange light and the intermezzo sign goes on. Voices of dissent are muffled by whisky and pastizzi. Some reactionaries persist in fomenting discord, bearing placards that threaten “nessun Norma, nessun dorma!”
The big lull sets in with a long-winded opera debate but we are not to know until the final act what will become of our beloved city. Under this deep veil of secrecy Gonzi gives out tantalizing hints as to the fate of the city’s prime site. Again he cites the wise words of the learned Fenech, chieftain of Manoel Theatre. The plot is wearing thin. KZ Ta’ Bona traipses in to sing praises to opera and is awarded a full round of applause. Music is ratcheted up to allegro. Gonzi is getting hot under the collar and orders another intermezzo.
Enter La Commedia dell’Arte showing off its lead guitarist Bondi in a plus ça change strapped outfit promoting rock operas somewhere in Rome and in a bass voice calls everyone tea-sipping musty old gits with attitude. He gets booed off the stage, a second time, and hurriedly grabs a xarabank to the airport. He’s not bothered. e90,000 is peanuts compared to the 350,000 his outfit gets every year from taxpayers to entertain the people with quality productions on TV, the real new opera house of the masses. WE could do so much better than BOV anytime. WE could offer vouchers of all sorts and fill up the Manoel in no time. Now there’s an idea! And we’d have everyone having a go too, just like on Xarabank. WE could get Oprah too. WE could be Oprah!
Back on stage the last curtain call is over. Seven hundred phantoms of this opera drift through the parked cars leaving the aristocrats of Valletta to defecate with abandon in the gloomy darkness.