Music #353 - Bellini

Vincenzo Bellini

[vinˈtʃɛntso belˈliːni]  (1801 – 1835)

The youngest member of the trio (with Rossina & Donizetti) of early Romantic Italian opera composers.

Known for his long-flowing melodic lines, for which he was named "the Swan of Catania", Bellini was the quintessential composer of bel canto opera.

The greatest works of this Italian opera composer are:
I Capuleti ed i Montecchi / The Capulets and the Montagues;
La sonnambula;
Norma;
I puritani.

La sonnambula / The Sleepwalker

- tale of sleepwalking girls 

(L) "Ah! non credea mirarti" (Amina)     

  

(R) "Prendi, l'anel ti dono" (Elvino)

Click here for a 2-hour complete (movie) version

Norma 

- tale of Druid priestesses

- Norma in her priestess's robes is hauntingly dramatic heroine

"Casta Diva" / "Chaste Goddess" aria

- the priestess heroine's great invocation to the moon

- the supreme bel canto aria in the repertoire

(L) long believed impossible to perform, it was revived by Joan Sutherland

 
(R) Maria Callas's performances in Norma were a career highlight,

showing her at her best, both as a singer and as an actress  

 

Click here for a 2.5-hour complete opera.

I puritani / The Puritans 

- based on Sir Walter Scot's Old Mortality, set during the English Civil War

Click here for a 3-hour full version

EXTRA: The 2009 film The Young Victoria includes an episode in which Prince Albert is told that I puritani is the favorite opera of Queen Victoria (which indeed it was), who recently came to the British throne, and, in courting her, he claims that it is his favorite too. Victoria, however, sees through his gambit – but in the end agrees to marry him anyway --- [She found him 'beautiful, and so excessively handsome, and had him fathered 9 children.] 

Source: Wikipedia