Arts bonanza at summer festival

Culture and the arts will come together for a two-month bonanza of the Summer Arts Festival guaranteed to appeal to a wide range of tastes.

An opera premiere, cutting edge contemporary dance, virtuoso classic concerts, top-flight jazz, experimental Maltese theatre and poetry recitals are among the items on this year's bill.

Organised by the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts and sponsored by HSBC Bank Malta and Viset Malta, the second edition of the festival will be held at the Valletta Waterfront, St James Cavalier and the university campus.

Speaking during the launch, MCCA chairman Joe Friggieri said he believed this year's festival provided the perfect blend of mainstream and niche events.

Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech agreed, saying that the calendar of events was a clear manifestation that this year's edition would try and reach out to all forms of art.

The festival will open in style on July 1 with a visual arts exhibition entitled Six Generations of Maltese Contemporary Artists.

Coordinated by George Glanville, the exhibition at the restored Pinto Stores brings together the works of Maltese artists born between 1920s and the 1970s.

The Taming Of The Shrew, this year's Shakespeare play by MADC, will be held between June 28 and July 8.

On July 3, the Euro Academy Youth Orchestra will present a charity concert under the direction of Manoel Pirotta, in aid of the James Grech Cancer Fund.

Internationally acclaimed Italian pianist Davide Cabassi will be lending his musical notes to Virtuoso Classics between July 5 and 7, and on Friday, July 22, Leonard Bernstein's opera Candide will be presented in concert version.

Candide is one of the summer calendar's highlights with the participation of the Voices choir led by Martina Caruana and the National Orchestra by Michael Laus.

The cast for the Maltese premiere includes American baritone Kurt Ollmann, a Bernstein veteran.

Elisabeth: Or To Be A Mann, an opera with libretto by Peter Serracino Inglott and music by Charles Camilleri, will be held on August 3. Soprano Rosabelle Bianchi and Bass Albert Buttigieg will interpret the parts of Elisabeth Mann Borgese and her father Thomas Mann.