The rivalry between San Giorgio and Santa Maria goes back further than anyone can

The rivalry between San Giorgio and Santa Maria goes back further than anyone can remember. These two parishes have competed over most things in their time.In 1863, the cathedral formed a marching band, the Leone, to play on feast days, so St George’s did the same, calling theirs the Stella. Then the cathedral went one better and built a dance hall for the Leone to play in; St George’s built a bigger one, calling it the Astra. Not to be outdone, the cathedral rebuilt their dance hall a little further down Racecourse Street, using money left to them by a wealthy Gozitan who had won the English Grand National. Taking a double-fronted baroque townhouse, the Leone boys added another storey and furnished their new home, the Aurora, with a bar and rehearsal rooms. So St George’s did the same.Finally, the cathedral knocked through the back wall of the Aurora to build an opera house in which they gave their first performance – Madama Butterfly – in 1976.

This was no opera studio, as might befit an island of 29,000 people, but a full 1,500-seater opera house, bigger than many in Britain, about the size of the new house that the Welsh National Opera wants to build for itself in Cardiff.Within two years, supporters of St George’s had completed their own opera house, added to the back of the Astra. In September 1978 they gave their first opera, Verdi’s Rigoletto, in a house seating 1,200.These operas are not insignificant events. Gozo has a population smaller than that of Lichfield, and yet each house can count on capacity audiences. At least 300 people work for nothing, making costumes, building scenery and looking after the front-of-house duties every year.

The singers almost always come from Italy; businessmen loyal to each house help to raise funds annually to pay their fees, while the Maltese government, anxious not to take sides, provides the orchestra for both houses.The audience is not entirely local: so important is Maltese support for the box office, in fact, that should the ferry crossing prove rough, performances will be delayed until everyone has disembarked and dried off.The repertoire remains strictly Latin (Puccini, Bizet, Verdi). Carmen will be performed (yet again) at the Aurora on 25 November, and, while the Astra is keeping its plans a secret, rumour has it that it’s hoping to commemorate the centenary of Verdi’s death in its first production of 2001. Secrecy is an inevitable part of the rivalry on Gozo, although it did have disastrous consequences a few years ago, when both companies announced that they were staging Verdi’s Aida, and neither would budge.Visiting the Aurora and Astra is easy. Republic Street, where they stand within a few hundred yards of each other, is the only major road on the island. Both buildings look like fine double-fronted limestone townhouses, which in Britain might be rather superior banks or even local Conservative Party headquarters The externals are deceptive, however.