Festival Mediterranea 2018 is opening this week in Gozo – final preparations are underway on this seventeenth edition of this annual celebration of high culture.

Coinciding with Teatru Astra’s 50th anniversary, the theatre said that this year’s special edition, is being held in honour of the festival’s artistic director, Mro Joseph Vella, whose sudden demise last February brought shock to the community, as well as the local and international musical arena.

The Festival opens with a public talk at Il-Hagar Museum this Saturday, the 20th of October, reaching its climax on Thursday the 25th and Saturday the 27th of October, with a double rendition of Giuseppe Verdi’s operatic masterpiece `La Traviata.’

The theatre said that the opera production is supported by several free-of-charge cultural and educational events that weekend, including a pre-opera public talk by Dr Abraham Borg – Opera for the Lady who strayed. The talk takes place in the morning of both opera days, starting at 10:00am, at the premises of Vini e Capricci.

Then on Friday the 26th, between noon and 1:00pm, Dr Paul George Pisani and Rev. George J. Frendo will be giving guided tours of Il- Hagar Museum and the Joseph Vella Music Archive.

Also on Friday, the Festival continue at Tal-Massar Winery in Gharb, at 3:00pm, for a wine tasting event.

Patrons will also have the opportunity to tour the vineyard and have an educational presentation on the production of local wine which covers the entire process behind that bottle, from the initial fermentation through the ageing development. Participation in this event is against a fee of €25 and pre-booking is essential.

Festival Mediterranea will then present – Ovid…an entertainment – again on the Friday, starting at 7.30pm.

This is a choral recital by the Oxford Girls Choir, Cantiquorum, and George Caird, at the Kempinski San Lawrenz Hotel. Entrance is free of charge.

Following the second rendition of La Traviata on Saturday the 27th of October, Festival Mediterranea continues with three other high profile events on the 10th, 24th and the 30th of November and on the 1st and 2nd of December.

Online booking and more information is available on www.teatruastra.org.mt

The opera and Festival Mediterranea are being organised with the support of the Gozo Cultural Support Fund and the Ministry for Gozo.

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