CULTURE | Sunday, 15 July 2007

Malta Arts Festival – The first week

The Malta Arts Festival will be kicking off from 25 July. Here are some highlights from the inaugural week of the culture-based summer festival, taking place over various venues in Valletta.
A series of events has been organised to commemorate Caravaggio’s 400th anniversary, amongst them Quoting Caravaggio, which forms part of the festival and promises to be an innovative and dynamic look at Caravaggio and his relationship with Malta. Curated by Keith Sciberras, the exhibition will feature the work of five different artists, each having their own unique take and reaction to the Baroque master and his oeuvre. All the exhibitions will be free. The artists are: Gabriel Caruana, Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci, Vince Briffa, Caesar Attard and Anton Calleja.
In a dramatic shift (for the first time since WW2) from San Anton Gardens to the opera house remains, this year’s MADC Shakespeare will be a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on from 25 – 29 July and directed by Chris Gatt. The romantic comedy is one of the Bard’s most popular plays. It centres on the adventures and misadventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors in a moonlit forest, and their interaction and entanglement with the fairies that populate it. The cast includes Manuel Cauchi, Pia Zammit, Edward Mercieca, Coryse Borg and more. Tickets are at Lm5 with Lm2 concessions for groundlings.
A sure-fire crowd pleaser, The National Orchestra Goes Pop will be playing at the Mediterranean Conference Center on 28 and 29 July. The concert will feature a 60 piece orchestra performing a range of Maltese and international numbers together with some of Malta’s leading popular entertainers. It is an exciting initiative which will see Malta’s orchestra perform popular music ranging from swing to soul and rock as well as music from sound tracks, accompanied by the likes of Chasing Pandora and Ludwig Galea.
The concert will begin at 9.00pm. Tickets for this event are available from the box office of the Mediterranean Conference Centre or by calling on 25595750/1 or ticket hotline 99774400. Tickets are priced Lm6 (Stalls) and Lm8 (Dress Circle).
For any further inquiries on tickets and booking, log on to www.maltaticket.com
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