Teatru Manoel Artistic Director elected PERSPECTIV President

Kenneth Zammit Tabona, Artistic Director of the Valletta International Baroque Festival and Teatru Manoel, has been elected President of PERSPECTIV, the Association of European Historic Theatres during its annual general assembly in Berlin.

Founded in 2003 this association provides a dynamic forum wherein scores of historic Theatres from Drottnigholm to Bordeaux to Valletta and from Toledo to Cesky Krumlov to Belgrade can share expertise to ensure the survival of these beautiful temples of the arts in future.

PERSPECTIV also concurrently runs an EU Funded project that created a number of geographical and regional routes across the continent which engendered national associations that hitherto did not exist, laying the foundations for an increasingly pan-European approach with regard to conservation, restoration and above all historically informed production.

Despite the Manoel having been a founder member in 2003 the theatre only became active within this organisation in 2011. Teatru Manoel has benefited greatly from membership which has included staff exchange internships, professional technical assessments and above all PERSPECTIV has officially endorsed the ongoing acclimatisation project which is subsidised by EU funds. The idea for this acclimatisation project dates back to 2011 when Zammit Tabona attended his first meeting in Litomysl in the Czech Republic wherein a presentation was made about an acclimatisation project by Peter Seifert from the glorious Margravischer Opernhaus at Bayreuth.

The Teatru Manoel, built to order by a Portuguese grandmaster, an Italian architect, modified and enhanced by British engineers for an ever-varied audience from 1731 to the present day is today considered to be a major player in an association such as PERSPECTIV and membership of Europe's oldest working national theatre with such an interesting history was a sine qua non.

Mr Zammit Tabona had already served on the Board of PERSPECTIV since 2014. He will be steering the organisation through some challenging times with the aim of making it more representative and inclusive. The board is made up of Vice Presidents Marilena Frati from Teatro Mazzacorati in Bologna and Åsa Tillmann from Drottnigholm Palace Theatre outside Stockholm, Treasurer Matthias Wickert from Hanau Theatre in Germany and Per Forsstrom ex CEO of Drottnigholm, Rupert Rhymes ex CEO of English National Opera and Yvonne Beysolyu a financier with a keen interest in supporting the arts.