Opera island – sustainability is about culture too

More opera per square metre in this tiny Mediterranean island than anywhere else in the world

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Despite having just 30,000 inhabitants, the Mediterranean island of Gozo has two opera houses – the Astra Theatre and the Aurora Opera House.

Each puts on at least one fully staged opera a year, often with international soloists.

But not just operas, also all of the events around opera too, ranging from wine tastings to pre-opera talks to street opera to specially-created entertainments. Obviously there is a passionate audience in Gozo for this highest form of music theatre.

Here is the programme

In 1978, the Teatru Astra ventured in the greatest form of stage production – the Opera. Rigoletto was first on the list. This was successfully by other productions such as Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Aida, Lucia di Lammermoor, L’Elisir D’Amore, Norma, La Traviata, La Forza del Destino, Nabucco, Turandot, Il Trovatore and Macbeth.

Teatru Astra patrons have been exposed to world-class singers direct from the Metropolitan theatre in New York, Teatro alla Scala and Sofia State Opera House among whom Ghena Dimitrova, Pamela Kucenic, Adelaide Negri, Joseph Calleja, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, Aldo Protti, Mark Rucker, Rumen Doikov, and Giuseppe Giacomini feature prominently. The Teatru Astra stage has also been the venue from where internationally acclaimed local artists, including Miriam Cauchi and Joseph Calleja, debuted their operatic career.

The other opera house – Teatru tal-Opra Aurora, can host up to 1600 people. This largest opera house on the islands houses its audiences in the stalls, a level of ­hall boxes accessed from within the auditorium and two other boxed tiers and an upper gallery. Its u-shape design, slope, architectural features, and wise choice of furnishing fabrics and materials including the soffit, endow the Teatru tal-Opra Aurora with perfect acoustics making it an ideal venue for operas and any other musical entertainment.

The theatre was inaugurated on the 9th October 1976 and hosted its first opera production, Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, in 1977.

So take your choice and enjoy all that Gozo has to offer – wonderful walks, stunning sights, great local food – and international level opera.

Valere Tjolle

Valere is editor and publisher of Sustainable Tourism 0.2 which deals with travel and tourism and climate change, overtourism, art and tourism and green destinations amongst other sustainable tourism issues.

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