Vincenzo Bellini

Vincenzo Bellini, the master of bel canto , died prematurely at the age of 33, leaving a legacy of operas that continue to grace the repertoire, including La sonnambula and Norma, composed at the end of his life. In the family of Vincenzo Bellini, born in Catania, Sicily, on November 3, 1801, music was handed down from one generation to the next. His grandfather was master of the Benedictine chapel and organist, as was his father, who gave him his first piano lessons at the age of three. By the age of six, the boy was composing the cantata Gallus cantavit for soprano and organ. His precocious ability to develop melodies for small ariettas was unquestionable, and after his family training, the young man had to follow the rigorous teaching of his masters. Of modest origins, he received financial assistance from the Duke of San Martino to study at the San Sebastiano Conservatory in Naples, where his teachers included Giovanni Furno (harmony), Giacomo Tritto (counterpoint), Girolamo Crescentini (voice) and Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli, a renowned composer and favorite of Napoleon I, and rival of Gioachino Rossini. During his studies, which were not without their troubles due to his political ideas, which ran counter to King Ferdinand I, the young Bellini, who was almost expelled from the Conservatory, delivered his first opera, Adelson e Salvini (1825), a semiseria drama in three acts inspired by two French works, which was already a success and earned him a commission from the Teatro San Carlo for a new work. This was to be Bianca e Gernando, whose original title Bianca e Fernando was changed to suit the prince, the future King of the Two Sicilies Ferdinand II. This first version premiered on May 30, 1826, and was revised with the help of Felice Romani, who was to become the composer's librettist, for its performance under its original title at Genoa's Teatro Carlo Felice on April 7, 1828. Once again, this success led to a commission, in this case from La Scala in Milan. Romani's first collaboration, based on a play by Irish author Charles Robert Maturin, Il Pirata premiered on October 27, 1827, with no fewer than four of the leading voices of the day, baritone Antonio Tamburini, tenor Giovanni Rubini and sopranos Henriette Méric-Lalande and Marietta Sacchi. This story of the heroine Imogene's passion for a pirate is triumphantly welcomed with its final mad scene, represented by the aria "Col sorriso d'innoncenza". After a brief eclipse, Il Pirata returned to the opera stage. The intendant of La Scala, Barbaja, commissioned another work from Bellini, La Straniera (February 14, 1829), which did not have the same impact but was still performed, before the premiere at Parma's Teatro Regio of Zaira (May 16, 1829), based on Voltaire's Zaïre, from which Bellini recycled musical passages and arias for better-known works. Since Rossini's retirement, Bellini had established himself as the master of Italian opera, with Gaetano Donizetti as his only rival before the advent of Verdi. Praised for his inexhaustible sense of melody, put at the service of the greatest voices, Vincenzo Bellini loved nothing more than melodramatic subjects, most often embodied by romantic heroines, sublimated by Romani's formulas and the composer's orchestral skills. For I Capuleti e i Montecchi, premiered at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1830, Romani was not directly inspired by Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, but by Luigi Scevola's work of the same name, which he had already used five years earlier for Niccola Vaccai. The female role was given to Rosalbina Carradori-Allan and that of Romeo to mezzo-soprano Guiditta Grisi, disguised as a transvestite, who would reprise it with her sister Giulia for the Paris premiere three years later. The highly acclaimed work once again includes some great arias, including the final duet. On March 6, 1831, La sonnambula, a lyric work in two acts based on Eugène Scribe's vaudeville, was performed at Milan's Teatro Carcano. The evening, which also featured the ballet Il furore di amore by his friend Francesco Pollini, was conducted by the composer himself, and starred Giuditta Pasta as Amina and Giovanni Rubini as Elvino, two stars of the era. The opera, which concludes with the famous aria "Ah! non credea mirarti " during a sleepwalking scene, quickly conquered international stages, from London to New York. The prima donna Pasta is once again featured in the tragedy Norma, a Gallic priestess repudiated by the Roman proconsul Pollione, who prefers the novice Adalgisa. From the beginning, with its famous cavatina "Casta diva ", to the final scene at the stake, the title role is confronted with the greatest vocal exercises, and although the opera failed to convince the audience at La Scala in Milan on the evening of December 26, 1831, it was eventually taken up by the greatest sopranos, including Maria Callas, who made it one of her hobbyhorses. In 1833, Bellini was faced with a very different case when he performed Beatrice di Tenda at La Fenice in Venice on March 16. As soon as the subject had been chosen, a disagreement arose between him and his librettist Felice Romani, delaying the writing of the work and forcing Bellini to draw on previous scores to complete the composition. In addition to the breakdown of their collaboration, the poor public reception contributed to the failure of the work, which was performed only three times before being revived on the occasion of the composer's centenary. Bellini decided to leave Italy, staying briefly in London before settling in Paris, where he made friends with Frédéric Chopin and Rossini, who commissioned him to write a new work for the Théâtre-Italien. This was to be his last, I Puritani (January 24, 1835), which required nine months' work with the young librettist Carlo Pepoli. For the occasion, Giulia Grisi in the role of Elvira, Giovanni Battista Rubini, Antonio Tamburini and Luigi Lablache, an exceptional cast, formed a successful quartet for the following performances, with the counter-fa of "Credeasi, misera", the highest note for the tenor playing the role of Arturo. Awarded the Légion d'honneur, Vincenzo Bellini was preparing to work with Alexandre Dumas when he died of dysentery in Puteaux on September 23, 1835, aged just 33.

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