The Three Palaces Festival returns on Wednesday, promising sublime music amid magnificent architecture and a five-day programme inspired by the 700th anniversary of the famous Venetian explorer Marco Polo. Esther Lafferty talks to artistic director MICHELLE CASTELLETTI to find out more. 

One cannot think of Venice and not visualise lushness, gold, silks, colour, illumination and more; riches that evoke the magnificence and opulence of the splendid palaces in Malta, Michelle Castelletti, artistic director of The Three Palaces Festival, says.

“Throughout history, we have always been a conduit between East and West, in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea. It seemed the perfect combination,” she adds. 

Artistic director Michelle Castelletti

From Venice, Castelletti’s mind turned to arguably its most famous composer, Vivaldi, and so the festival is presenting a concert series of different interpretations and facets of his The Four Seasons.

“We’re very lucky that the Grand Master’s Palace has now reopened: it’s a magnificent setting for our first concert, a piano trio featuring pianist Christine Zerafa, cellist Jacob Portelli, and, on violin, Sarah Spiteri, who will be acting as quasi-artist-in-residence for this edition of the festival,” Castelletti notes.

The trio will perform Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons and Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. From a lyrical journey through the 12 months of the year, painting vivid portraits of nature’s changing landscapes with romantic melodies and evocative imagery, the audience will then be transported to the New World with Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, composed in the 1960s.

Marco Polo sets sail to Venice, 1271. Credit: The Bodleian Library, Oxford

“It’s an energetic reimagining of Vivaldi’s baroque classic through the lens of Argentine tango that evokes the dynamic pulse of urban life in South America. It will be an amazing contrast. I am also thrilled that our audiences will have the opportunity to go on a guided tour of this newly restored palace before the performance.”

The next work in a triptych of ‘nods to Vivaldi’ is Max Richter’s Vivaldi: The Four Seasons Recomposed at the Museum of Archaeology on November 1, with soloist Kurt Falzon, string orchestra and harpsichord, conducted by Riccardo Bianchi, the leader of KorMalta.

“Richter’s music can be considered esoteric; but in this work he takes the core of Vivaldi’s work and reconfigures it to make it contemporary – a shimmering mist that explodes into the most exciting colours and rhythmic sounds – sometimes wistful, sometimes hold on to your seat,” the artistic director says.

The Three Palaces Festival is an annual event. Photo: Elisa Von Brockdorff

The audience will also be welcomed by a newly commissioned work for the festival by Maltese dancer/choreographer Luke Bugeja Gauci, inspired by Venice, Vivaldi, and the rich interconnectedness of East and West.

Vivaldi’s original version is being presented in the stunning setting of Verdala Palace on November 2, with soloist Stefan Calleja and the full Valletta International Baroque Ensemble, Malta’s premiere baroque and renaissance Ensemble. Afterwards, there will be an opulent Venetian masked ball with glorious costumes: expect glitz and glamour, exotic feathers and a jester.

On October 31, festival visitors will also get a chance to raise their voices at a ‘Come-and-Sing’ event, the first of its kind in Malta.

One of the venues of the festival. Photo: Owen Michael Grech

“It’s a concept that’s very popular in the UK,” Castelletti observes. “Everyone is invited to come to sing alongside a choir – or two, in this case, St Paul’s Choral Society and Amadeus Chamber Choir.”

There will also be a brass quartet as a nod to the Venetian link helping to recreate the wonder of spatial music with the works of Giovanni Gabrieli heralded from the top balcony.

“It’s an extraordinary space, the place in Malta that I consider a gem above all gems,” Castelletti says with a smile.

“The Knights of St John left an incredible legacy in Malta, not least in visual art and architecture. Another national treasure is the L’Isle Adam Illuminated Choral Books: a set of 10 exquisitely illuminated manuscripts, dated 1533 – one of the first commissions by the Grand Master L’Isle Adam while in Malta – from the celebrated scriptorium of the collaborators of Jean Pichore, active in Paris and Rouen.” 

Castelletti remarks that both are of extraordinary historical and artistic significance.

She adds that it had been an honour to collaborate with St John’s Co-Cathedral Foundation to create a documentary which will be on loop throughout the day in the splendour of the oratory, which also houses the largest (and only) signed painting by Caravaggio – The Beheading of St John the Baptist – to share this world of glorious opulence with everyone.

The song line-up includes Vivaldi’s Gloria in D major, the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah and Gabriel Fauré’s In Paradisum, as well as works by Maltese composers, Charles Camilleri and Franceso Azopardi. 

The splendid architecture of one of the venues, Palazzo Parisio, Naxxar.

The final concert is Roses, Carnevale and Angels Unmasked with harpist Alexander Rider at Palazzo Parisio, Naxxar – a performance that will take the audience on a journey along the Silk Road from the rose gardens of Central Asia, in Khachaturian’s Danse Orientale, to the grand canals in Venice and the haunting song of Hasselmans’s Gondoliera. The programme also includes the world premiere of Flight of the Angel (Behind the Mask) by Lauren Scott.

Prior to the performance, Palazzo Parisio is hosting a Venetian-themed afternoon tea, and the festival is organising an artisanal market with mosaics, lace-making, filigree and more, highlighting the parallels between Venetian traders in the Renaissance era and Maltese heritage crafts.

Elsewhere in the festival, there will be buskers inspired by the Silk Road, by travel and discovery and a workshop on traditional mask-making by top carnival-float builder Lawrence Coleiro at the Malta Society of Arts premises, Palazzo de la Salle, in Valletta.

And perfect for a festival that is, this year, drawing much of its inspiration from Marco Polo’s journey to the Orient, Malta’s Eastern Region is proud to be recognised as Region of Culture for 2024. There really is something for everyone.