Ġawhar Misjub – An Operatic Banquet’ production comes to an end.

The production ‘Ġawhar Misjub – An Operatic Banquet’ came to an end last Saturday with the premier at St.Agatha, Auditorium, Rabat. This was Mikiel Anton Vassalli College, Malta’s national college for the performing and visual arts’s, annual production after last year the college put up ‘Blat : The Island Fortress’ the first ever Maltese opera film.  

Work on this production had started nearly a year earlier when a meeting was held with Clare Ghigo about the research and collection of the music required. This was a very time consuming process since Ms. Ghigo needed to look not only in the Mdina Metropolitan Archives (to whom we would like to give thanks for the collaboration) but also in several archives online. Most of the music found was handwritten, unpublished and hence an editing and transcription process was needed to input the music into modern music notation software. The photo below is of the original hand written score of Giuseppe Arena’ ‘Tu Vuoi che io Vivo o Cara’ from the opera Artasersere. 

In the meantime recruitment of the professionals which would take part in the production was ongoing. When recruitment was finished a call was released for students interested to take part to apply in the different disciplines – music, dance, drama, visual arts. Applicant students sat for an audition or interview according to the area which they had chose. 

The first meetings between the professionals and the students consisted mainly of information sessions so that the students got to understand their role better. 

Around March music and dramatic rehearsals started , whilst the set was being built by students and professionals.  

After all these stages everything came to a peak in the week starting 15th of May when the orchestra and the singers started to meet together for rehearsals. This, though was only after the singers and choir had undergone rigorous staging rehearsals with the stage director Clare Ghigo.  

During production week which started on the 22nd of May things really heated up as we moved into the performance venue, the wonderful St.Agatha’s auditorium in Rabat. The set was assembled , lights were set and the full rehearsals began. It took everyone’s effort to get to the final product which was very well appreciated. This could be clearly seen by the approximately 700 people who turned up to see the show. 

This production was not only an artistic venture but also an educational one. This was possible  through the platform Belt il Bniedem conceived by Dr. Reuben Pace in 2016. In all fourty students from the college and MVPA tok part in different roles in the production. There were 6 students in the orchestra, 3 students of dance, 2 student actors, 8 students in the children’s choir, 4 students in the adult choir, 3 student solo singers, 7 students involved in scene construction, 4 students acting as assistant stage directors, 2 students as backstage hands, one stage manager assistant and 1 wardrobe mistress assistant.  These students , after submitting their reflective journal will receive an accredited award worth 24 ECTS.  

Rehearsals

We would like to thank everyone involved in the production but very special thanks go to Clare Ghigo for her dedication, patience and resilience and to Mro. Christopher Muscat for his unmatched musical vision which was crucial in bringing out the individual character of each musical piece , especially since pieces were from widely different eras and idioms. 

A production such as this would not have been possible without substantial funding and for this we have to thank the Ministry of Education for supplying the necessary funds.