OPERA BELLINI The Italian Opera Company of Chicago

Vincenzo Bellini was born under a star that was both lucky and unlucky. Lucky, because he rolled from one great success to another at an unusually early age, collaborating with some of the most celebrated figures of one of opera's Golden Ages, and unlucky, because he died at the age of 34, soon after his greatest triumph. Bellini is naturally the pride of Catania, Sicily, where he was born, but Bellini's grandfather, Vincenzo Tobia Bellini (1744-1829), the composer's most important youthful musical influence, actually came from Torricella, in the Abruzzi. The composer's father, Rosario (1779-1842), was the maestro di capella and organist in a Catania cathedral. Despite the family's impressive musical lineage Bellini's parents wanted the boy to be a lawyer, but the young Bellini was not receptive to any studies except those in music. So for about a decade Bellini was taught the rudiments of music and composition from his grandfather, who had studied in Naples. In 1819, with a grant from a Catanian nobleman, Vincenzo began studying music at the Conservatory in Naples. He was an outstanding student, and upon his graduation the director of the Conservatory arranged a performance of an opera by Bellini, his semi-sera Adelson e Salvini (1825). This work was so well received that Bellini was commissioned to represent the Conservatory with a work for the San Carlo, which resulted in Bianca e Gernando (1826). (Originally it was Fernando, but since this was the name of the heir-apparent to the throne, the name had to be changed.) On this occasion the three principal singers were Soprano Henriette Méric-Lalande (1799-1867), tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini (1794-1854) and bass Luigi Lablache (1794-1858), who were all outstanding artists that would perform in a number of the composer's future works. This opera pleased to such an extent that impresario Barbaja offered Bellini the opportunity to compose an opera for La Scala. Armed with a letter of introduction, Bellini traveled to Milan where he was initially welcomed and
looked after by composer Saverio Mercadante (1795-1870), who introduced him to the man who would write all but one of the librettos for Bellini's future operas, Felice Romani (1788-1865). The opera by Bellini and Romani that premiered at La Scala in 1827 was Il pirata, a tremendous success in Italy and beyond. Almost immediately Bellini was approached by Bartolmeo Merelli (1794-1879) who was at that time the impresario responsible for opening the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa the following year. He wanted a new work for the occasion, but Bellini offered him a version of Bianca e	Henriette Méric-Lalande	Saverio Mercadante	Felice Romani

Giovanni David

Fernando with a few new musical numbers and a revised libretto by Romani. In 1828, this too was a great success, with the famous Giovanni David (1790-1864) as Fernando. Meanwhile Bellini and Romani proceeded with work on La straniera, which triumphed at La Scala in 1829.

Bellini's fame was such that he was called on to inaugurate yet another theater, the Teatro Ducale (today the Teatro Regio) in Parma. This time things did not turn out so well. Bellini was probably over confident and Romani, the most sought-after librettist of his day, was extremely busy, as usual. They took Voltaire's Zaïre (1732) as their subject, which was not a bad idea, but the Parmigiani suspected that neither composer nor librettist put in the time and effort necessary to achieve the kind of result popularly desired. The people of Parma are very picky about music (consider Verdi and Toscanini!) and they were definitely not pleased by the premiere of Zaira (1829). To make matters worse, Romani openly flaunted a peculiar law of Parma that prohibited mustaches and allowed visitors three days to
shave off the facial hair, which the authorities believed was the outward sign of a subversive.

The Duchess of Parma, Marie-Louise (1791-1847), who knew very well that her subjects cared more for music than government, used her influence to spare Romani the ignominy of being jailed. After an unexplained delay, Zaira finally opened, receiving the ugly reception that had now been anticipated.

Something about the scoring of Zaira that may strike us as curious today, was quite common in the early 19th century, namely that the role of Nerestano, a male character, was composed for mezzo-soprano, a woman. This is an example of how composers of that time sought to satisfy their audiences' insatiable appetite for the spectacle of women performing on stage in public, something that had only relatively recently been allowed. For thousands of years, women were prohibited from performing in public, so all roles - male and female - were portrayed by men. Now the pendulum swung the other way and women often portrayed men! Another reason for this en travesti casting arose from the centuries-old tradition of major characters - male or female - being scored for high voices, because melodies are best perceived in upper registers.

Marie-Louise

The next Bellini-Romano opera, I Capuleti e i Montecchi (1830), also included a "pants role" for a mezzo-soprano, that of Romeo. Premiered at the Fenice in Venice, this opera contained much music from Zaira. (Cannibalizing a failed opera for material to be presented in a new work in another city was also a custom of the period.) This music may not have pleased in Parma, but when

Giuditta Pasta

it opened on the evening of March 11, I Capuleti was a resounding triumph, so much so that after the first performance, Bellini was carried to his hotel on the shoulders of his admirers in a torchlight parade.

The Venetian triumph was followed by another opera that remains in the standard repertoire, La sonnambula (1831). With a cast led by diva Giuditta Pasta, who would star in the next two Bellini-Romani operas, this semi-seria piece was a huge success at the Teatro Carcano in Milan. Then came the composer's masterpiece, Norma (1831), back at La Scala. (Norma was a flop on opening night, but was wildly acclaimed in subsequent performances.) This opera is not only one of the all time greats, it contains one of the most beautiful and very celebrated soprano arias, the gorgeous and quintessentially Bellinian "Casta diva."

All good things must come to a end, and so it was with the collaboration between Bellini and Romani, which occurred shortly after the premiere of their next opera, Beatrice di Tenda (1833). The breakup was caused,

not by the opera's failure (Beatrice was actually very well received at its premiere in Venice), but by Romani's impossible work
schedule. His poetic skill was in such demand that he had committed to compose four or five libretti at the same time. One would
think, given Bellini's fame and almost sure-fire prospects for success, that Romani would have given priority to this composer's project.
But librettists were paid, rightly or wrongly, only a fraction of what composers earned for an opera, so it behooved them to get as much work as they could while they could get it! So while Bellini sat idle in Venice, Romani worked away in Milan until a complaint by the management of the Fenice, that the librettist was not honoring his contract, prompted the Milanese authorities to force the poet to go
to Venice. Naturally, Romani resented this, and after the delayed premiere of Beatrice di Tenda, he posted a statement in a local newspaper unfairly assigning the blame for the delay to Bellini. Understandably, Bellini could no longer work with Romani.

Bellini's next major stop was in London, where several of his operas were produced, including the English premiere of Norma, with Pasta in the title role. Then, like Rossini before him, he moved on to Paris, where he hoped to conquer as did his revered predecessor. By now he had enough money to take a brief hiatus from composing, and he spent much of his free time in the salon of Principessa Belgioioso, who catered to Italian political exiles and artists from all over the Continent. Here Bellini met luminaries like Chopin, George Sand, Dumas and the acid-tongued Heinrich Heine, who described the composer as "a sigh in dancing pumps." There were two Parisian theaters that interested Bellini, the Opéra, where Rossini had premiered Le Siège de Corinthe (1826), Moïse et Pharon (1827), Le Comte Ory (1828) and Guillaume Tell (1829), and the Théâtre des Italiens, which was reserved for works in Italian. When negotiations with the more prestigious Paris Opéra dragged on endlessly, Bellini agreed to produce a new opera for the Théâtre des Italiens with a libretto by Count Carlo Pepoli, an Italian revolutionary to whom the composer was introduced in Belgioioso's salon. The new opera, based on a French play, Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers (1833), would become I puritani (1835).

Principessa Belgioioso

The "Puritani Quartet"

Giulia Grisi	Giovanni Battista Rubini	Antonio Tamburini	Luigi Lablache
With its brilliant soprano coloratura, its stratospheric tenor lines and its lush ensembles, all typical of a Bel Canto opera, Bellini's I puritani still does not come close to the appeal of his Norma today. In 1835, however, I puritani was a dazzling success, probably due as much to the artistry and technique of its principal singers as to the excellence of its music. Indeed, the singers who created the principal roles, soprano Giulia Grisi (1811-1869), tenor Giovanni Rubini, baritone Antonio Tamburini (1800-1876) and bass Luigi Lablache, appeared in numerous productions of the opera all over Europe, including a private, command performance for England's future Queen, Crown Princess Victoria, on her fifteenth birthday. So associated was this group of singers with this piece that they became known as the "Puritani Quartet." Bellini enjoyed his greatest triumph only briefly. About six months after the January premiere of I puritani, the composer disappeared from Paris. Falling ill, he went to stay with some friends in their villa in Puteaux. Thinking that he had cholera, which was then raging in certain areas of the country. The Levys, who owned the villa, left Bellini there alone, where he was found dead on September 23. He did not have cholera, but died of a badly inflamed intestine and an abscess of the liver.

Vincenzo Bellini

Only three of Bellini's ten operas are produced with any regularity by the world's major companies these days, but the Sicilian composer must still be considered one of the undisputed masters of Italian opera. In an age that featured numerous more-or-less successful opera composers, including Pacini, Mercadante, Morlacchi, Cherubini and even early Donizetti, Bellini outshone them all. In other words, his music was the most preferred by audiences during his brief career and has endured far longer than that of any of his rivals. Despite the somewhat effeminate characterization of Bellini by Heine, the composer's music is consistently marked by a virile rhythmic structure supporting long flowing melodies that burn with passion. His frequent harmonic modulations a third up or down the scale were used by Verdi regularly. Bellini was indeed a very influential composer besides being one of the most successful ones.