DON GIOVANNI - Bank of Valletta

Bank of Valletta Group
Bank of Valletta was established in 1974, following the amalgamation of a number of Maltese
banks with a banking history dating back to 1809. Today, we at Bank of Valletta are Malta’s
largest public company having over 14,000 shareholders and with a sizeable branch network all
over the Islands that services the requirements of our esteemed clientele. Our international
network is supported by a number of representative offices in Australia, Canada, Italy, Libya and
Tunisia. Being a leading financial services provider, we are involved in providing an array of
products and services including: retail banking, trade and finance, private / investment banking,
fund management, internet banking, card services, bancassurance and stockbroking amongst
many more.
Apart from the mother company Bank of Valletta plc, the Group is further strengthened by two
subsidiaries, Valletta Fund Management and BOV Stockbroking Ltd, and an associate company
Middlesea Valletta Life Assurance Co. Ltd. To enhance our competitive edge and expertise fund
management operations and the bancassurance business, we have set up strategic alliances and
joint ventures with local and international financial institutions such as Insight Investments,
Munich Re and Middlesea Insurance. These ventures have created win win scenarios.
Our mission at BOV is to be an innovative, customer centric and creative organisation that
delivers personalised products and services, ensuring excellent careers for our people and
commitment to enhance the prosperity of the communities in which we operate. The strategies
we follow and the action we take are designed to create value for all our shareholders and
stakeholders.
Bank of Valletta’s future success depends on including the interests of all our stakeholders in
our business: our employees, our shareholders and the wider community where we work and
operate. As part of our corporate social responsibility at Bank of Valletta, we are committed to
contribute to the prosperity of the communities in which we operate and acknowledge the
responsibilities to invest in these to keep them vigorous and prosperous. This dimension goes
beyond the day to day operations of the Group. With the largest share of the Group’s community
investment devoted to education, health, welfare and community projects, BOV is also a strong
supporter of the arts, culture, sports, heritage restoration and environmental programmes. The
BOV Opera Festival is one such initiative that we look forward to support year in year out.
For further information on Bank of Valletta products and services and our role in supporting
the local communities we operate in, kindly visit our corporate web site or e-mail.
Bank of Valletta p.l.c., Valletta Fund Management Limited, BOV Stockbroking Limited and Middlesea
Valletta Life Assurance Company Limited are licensed to conduct investment services business by the MFSA.
Bank of Valletta p.l.c. is an insurance sub-agent of Middlesea Valletta Life Assurance Company Limited
and regulated by the MFSA. Middlesea Valletta Life Assurance Company Limited is licensed to carry on
long term business of insurance.
1732
TEATRU MANOEL
MAURO AVOGADRO
Artistic Director
Born in Turin in 1951, Mauro attended the
Accademia dell’Arte Drammatica ‘Silvio D’Amico’
in Rome between 1971-71. Soon he was working with
Luca Ronconi, founder of the Scuola del Teatro
Stabile di Torino, participating in the preparation
of many of his shows. These included Aristofanes’
Utopia, Ibsen’s Ghosts and Three Sisters, Pier Paolo
Pasolini’s Calderon, Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure,
Simone Weil’s Venezia salva and Kraus’s Gli ultimi
giorni dell’umanità.
In 1987 he started his work as director of his own
company, Associazione Culturale Isola, producing
Stravinski’s Histoire du soldat and D’Annunzio-
Malipiero’s Sogno di un tramonto d’autunno. He also directed Goldoni’s Il cavaliere e la dama for
the Festival di Borgio Verezzi (1994), with Annamaria Guarnieri, followed that same year by
Maurice Maeterlinck’s I ciechi and, in 1998, scenes from Tolstoj’s Death of Ivan Illic and Marguerite
Duras’s Il Dolore with Marisa Fabbri.
Mauro continued to collaborate with Ronconi on such projects as Berlioz’s La Damnation
de Faust, Janacek’s Il caso Makropulos and Pasolini’s Pilade, for both the Teatro Regio and Teatro
Stabile of Turin. For the Opera di Roma he directed L'Arlesiana, and then rejoined Ronconi on
Faust for the Opera Bastille di Parigi and the Scala di Milano.
Since then he has been a very busy director, with works by Donizetti, Verdi, Bellini, Scarlatti
and Giacosa at different locales, both in Italy and abroad. In more recent times he has produced
for diverse companies Thomas Bernhard’s L’ignorante e il folle, J.Goldman’s Il Leone d’inverno, and
M.Frayn’s Copenhagen which, after its debut in Udine, was transferred to a number of important
theatres. Between 1996 and 1999 Mauro was artistic director of the Festival di Chieri, and since
1997 has been director at the school of the Teatro Stabile of Turin.
Artistic Director’s Note:
“Is it possible to realise a musical masterpiece such as Mozart’s Don Giovanni for the stage?
The logical response of every stage director who dedicates himself to this endeavour should
be in the affirmative. But the present director, a cultivator of Mozart for several decades and a
spectator at numerous performances of Mozart operas, feels obliged to confess that, perhaps, the
staging narration, whether grand or sober, will always be lacking when confronting the sublime
heights and sublime lows inspired by this masterpiece.
With this in mind, only the enthusiasm of young singers, coupled with unbiased producers,
can offer a fertile terrain, thus inducing a director to accept the challenge. In what ‘believable’
context should one convey a story that places its credibility not among the folds of the characters’
personalities, or in society’s labyrinthine streets, but solely in the eternal conflict of good vs evil,
love vs death, rules vs transgression, all of which characterise the human spirit?
To approach all this we decided to draw the epoch of the 1700’s of Mozart and Da Ponte
nearer to the ‘dolce vita’ of the 1960’s – not to actualise, but to discover nearer to ourselves the
same contradictions in a world wavering between its own values and its own infamies. It is a
world in which Don Giovanni is nothing more than a catalyst; he is in fact like a virus the
contaminating force of which places everyone’s sacred certainties in discussion. He wages his
obstinate war to place life as a proud rival to the terrible conquerer of everyone’s destiny:
inescapable death.”
TEATRU MANOEL
1732