Conrad thake's article on the 1953 Valletta Opera House competition (The Sunday Times, April 15, 22), makes reference to Edward Middleton Barry's original design following his commission by the Maltese Council of Government in 1860.

Deeming it may be of interest to your readers to see the original planned frontal elevation, I submit an illustration of it which is kept in the Rare Books and Archives Department of the University of Malta Library, Tal-Qroqq. It is a gouache/watercolour depiction on paper measuring 26 x 14 cm. (presumably by Barry himself).

One can immediately see that Barry, who had recently rebuilt the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, after it burnt down in 1856, had never been to Malta, and was not aware of the sloping nature of the site.

When he subsequently became acquainted with this fact, Barry redesigned the plan inserting a wedged podium at the base to accommodate the gradient and thus create a level horizontal plane for the opera house. Access was provided by two flights of steps at either corner of the Strada Reale façade as well as another flight on the side streets. This podium is practically all that remains on site of the opera house today.

Your readers of over 40 years ago may recall that this illustration appeared in a series of seven articles on the Opera House by Alfred Samut-Tagliaferro in your paper from December 12, 1965 to January 21, 1966, reprinted as a monograph entitled "The Royal Malta Opera House: An Historical Sketch" in 1966.