Immanuel Mifsud

Immanuel Mifsud, a good friend and former classmate at St Paul's Missionary College in Rabat, is today a leading writer and theatre director. When he is not teaching at the University of Malta's junior college, Immanuel keeps this weblog. In recent posts he wrote about his fears of dying and flying; his discussions with European intellectuals and his allergy to the corridors of power. He is also angry at the way the Maltese authorities have replaced plans to rebuild the opera house in Valletta with a new house for Malta's Parliament - which everybody opposes including most parliamentarians - such is the nature of this Government!:

The Millennium Project - as the opening of the Creativity Centre was tagged -
was intended to include the building of the new opera house instead of the one
demolished by enemy aircraft. There was no agreement, however, as to whether the
opera house had to have the original design or something new. What is important
at this stage is that the site was destined to have a new opera house built on
it. Then all was forgotten. For a number of years. Until yesterday!

Yesterday morning, The Times (of Malta) reported that while having a business breakfast, Jesmond Mugliett (formerly Minister of Culture, now minister of Urban Development), announced that this site will not, after all, be destined to have a new theatre constructed on, but ... you won't believe this ... a new parliament! The honourable reasoning of the honourable minister follows these lines: theatres cost more than parliaments. Ah yes, this is a poor country - now - and it can't afford to erect a new theatre.

So, in the second world war, it was the Luftwaffe which ruined our theatre, in the new century it was the Government. For a second time the opera house was demolished. It's almost understandable that the Luftwaffe would throw bombs to demolish the country, after all we were at war with them. But to have a minister of your own government, and to top it all an ex-minister of CULTURE, declare war on the country's arts, is ... what shall I call this?

Tgedwid - Immanuel Mifsud in Maltese

German financial aid for the opera house?

An international special report about Valletta