Everything changed last year when the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged countless countries around the world. But for one 67-year-old folk singer, life has stood still and preserved its beauty even as the streets around him emptied out.

In a hauntingly beautiful video originally uploaded to Instagram by popular Maltese actress Marama Corlett, beloved għana singer Anġlu Mercieca – known to many as Il-Qaddis – belted out an improvised verse in an eerily quiet and empty Valletta.

Uploaded during the usually-bustling Easter weekend, the short clip will instantly take you back a couple of centuries but also add that dystopian feeling of a post-apocalyptic film… and it didn’t take long for many people to be moved by the performance.

“Protect at all costs,” one user urged, while others said it gave them goosebumps and actually reminded them of their grandparents.

“Anġlu is incredible and I was lucky to be there at that very moment,” Marama Corlett told Lovin Malta of the special moment she happened to be walking past. “I’d love for others to experience it too.”

 

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A post shared by Marama Corlett (@maramacorlett)

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