Beautiful singing, yes, but “bel canto” set singers amazing vocal challenges, not merely for ostentatious show, but for the marriage of music and drama.
Rossini's version of bel canto, even in comedy, had radically changed opera. But he had composed no more operas after William Tell. One explanation, explored here, is that 'he felt that the old florid style was being replaced by a nervous style, where singing gave way to howling. For him, “the art of singing had fallen into decay”'.
With Bellini, that art took a new direction, with liquid, flowing melodies, for which he won the title 'the swan of Catania'. 'Bellini perceived a dual purpose for vocal works; first for the development of the aria and vocal piece within the opera or context of the song, and second, for the wider context of presenting that opera or musical drama as a symbol of the beauty of human accomplishment within the arts.' More here.
Bel canto is often equated with vocal showmanship for its own sake, but Bellini's works and words stressed it was entirely for drama's sake. Tim Ashley in the Guardian:
Bellini likened composition to vomiting blood, and told Carlo Pepoli, the librettist of I Puritani, that "opera must make people weep, feel horrified, die through singing". It was a statement both of intent and of methodology. No other composer so relentlessly equates emotional probing with the naked exposure of the human voice, frequently underpinned by the sparest of accompaniments. He took the bel canto tradition, with its demands for technical prowess and its vertiginous coloratura, and placed it at the service of psychology, with deadly accurate, often unnerving results.
There are lots of biographical accounts of Bellini's terribly short life (1801 – 1835) and amazing musical achievements. Wiki's is thorough. There's a thoughtful account here, with this intriguing summary of his impact:
His unique gift for melody influenced the greatest of composers, not only of opera, Chopin amongst them. Donizetti had been influenced by Rossini and Rossini also gave Bellini some of his inspiration... In the Bel Canto vein, his is of the purest and most sustained melodic invention of this tradition. Bellini revised and revised for perfection and those work methods were that of a romanticism that had not yet penetrated Italy as it had Germany. The natural heir to this working style was Beethoven.
The four operas we play this term premiered between 1830 and 1835. These were busy times for Bellini, who, like Rossini, was driven by demand for operas from the leading houses (but with a far less frenetic output!). I Capuleti e i Montecchi, (The Capulets and Montagues) premiered 1830, followed in 1831 both Norma, at La Scala, and La sonnambula in Milan. His final opera was I puritani (1835 in Paris).
Stories of Strong Women
It's no coincidence that the great coloratura sopranos of our century have been known for their Bellini roles. Listen to some of those arias. Here's Callas with 'Casta Diva', in 1958. Here's Joan Sutherland in 2008. Here's Monserrat Caballe. The music is not just a display case for these voices: the character in the music is complex, powerful and tragic.
Being Norma: Callas, Sutherland and Caballe
Tim Ashley notes: "An extraordinary element of proto-feminism also threads its way through his output. The emotional weight of the bulk of his operas falls on a central female figure whose psychological destruction is brought about by weak, unstable or brutal men... Norma, the iconic Druid priestess and political leader, lives in a private hell as a result of her clandestine relationship with a vacillating enemy captain... Even in La Sonnambula ("The Woman who walked in her sleep"), Bellini's one swerve away from tragedy, the theme is the same. Amina is accused of infidelity when she sleepwalks into the wrong man's bedroom the night before her wedding; her fiancé refuses to believe in her innocence until a second sleepwalking episode puts her life in danger."
Bellini wrote not only for strong women's soprano coloratura but for two female leads. Romeo is a trouser role. Norma's soprano role is paired with Adalgisa, her assistant's mezzo. In recent years Joyce DiDonato has owned the mezzo parts. Here she's singing Romeo for SFO. And here are her comments on singing Adalgisa for the Met. We meet her as Romeo in Zurich, with Olga Kulchynska as Juliet, voices matching perfectly.
Romeo and Juliet in music: I Capuleti e i Montecchi
It's basically a cut down version of Shakespeare's story in a totally different historical setting. Bellini's opera was hastily created, apparently in six weeks. Not so impressive if you know that much of its music had already been composed for an earlier opera called Zaira that flopped. I Capuleti e i Montecchi was a success in 1830, but overshadowed 37 year's later by Gounod's much more traditionally romantic Romeo et Juliette (1867), which simply put Shakespeare's tale to music. Story of Bellini's opera's creation and synopsis here.
This was not the first time that story had been put into opera and it would not be the last. Importantly, it was not Shakespeare's story that Bellini adopted. The legend had been around in many versions. 'Historically set in the early 14th century in Verona, the legend of Romeo and Juliet was not in fact officially recorded until 1531 by Luigi da Porto, an Italian writer who lived near Vicenza. His book (translated from Italian) was titled Newly Found Story of Two Noble Lovers and is thought to have been inspired by a short story by Masuccio Salernitano (an Italian poet), though his characters were called Mariotto and Giannozza, while da Porto named his Romeus and Giulietta and added more characters that were adopted by later authors, including William Shakespeare.' More here about Shakespeare's version. His R&J appeared in the 1590s and drew on epic English language poems by Arthur Brooke (in 1562) and William Painter (in 1582).
Bellini drew on the original Italian 16th-century novella, radically different from the English versions. Instead of a local squabble, it's set in a religious civil war. The conflict is more historical, the opposing families are of Guelph (Capulets - pro Papacy) and Ghibelline (Montagues - pro Holy Roman Empire) factions. (Yes it says so in the libretto - lots of detail here. 'During the 12th and 13th centuries, rivalry between these two parties dominated political life across medieval Italy.' )
So the plot is not Shakespeare's, (Bellini had probably not yet met Shakespeare's works, which were only just appearing in Italy.) Nor are the characters. Romeo and Juliet have already pledged their love when the play starts, though she is already betrothed to Tebaldo (Tybalt). Romeo is a political leader, and poses as an ambassador to enter the Capuleti mansion. The sympathetic Lawrence is Lorenzo, Juliet's doctor... And so on.)
And the story is one of violence and hatred, not a romantic one of love. As Joyce diDonato comments on her blog here , "Any time Giulietta and Romeo meet in this version, they are in conflict. There is no love scene, no love duet, and no peace... This most decidedly is not a love story, but much more a comment on war and ridiculous territorial rubbish. " And here, on the opening night of the Zurich performance we watched, she dedicated it to the victims of American gun killings in Charleston. "Bellini’s version ... throws the emphasis squarely on the shoulders of these two warring families. This is undeniably an opera about war. Here there is no love duet between the two: they fight in every scene, even in death, never finding peace – even as harmonious thirds in the music ache for them to find each other. After the deaths, the warring families rush the stage and we see how the cycle will inevitably continue."
ABC played a recording of this opera earlier this year - and provided these notes.
Our production
As argued in this review, the opera simplifies Shakespeare's story, and our production uses that simplification to make strong statements. The female stars (Joyce diDonato as Romeo and Olga Kulchynska as Juliet) are backed by a formidable chorus of bullying men. Here's a sample of the way Bellini melds these two women's voices - the final scene. Review here from Bachtrack. And Opera Critic links to many other reviews here.
Don't expect a bitter-sweet romantic tale. Bellini's librettist didn't create one, and his music says so.
Moreover, our production dispels any such expectation immediately. The director, Christof Loy, is radical in his approach, stressing the brutality of the male dominated world the tragedy unfolds in - and on the whole reviews praised the results.
More detail about the director's messages in this review. The official trailer - here - gives a sense of the way the production portrays the overwhelming melancholy of this opera.
Vale Bellini
Bellini died at 33.
His splendid tomb in Catania's cathedral was paid for with funds raised by public subscription and coordinated by Rossini.
On its side is an inscription from Amina’s last aria in La Sonnambula: ‘Ah! non credea mirarti Sì presto estinto, o fiore - “I did not believe you would fade so soon, oh flower".
We'll play La Sonnambula at the end of this term. Meanwhile, Google that aria title and you'll find a long list of performances from sopranos famous for their Bellini bel canto. Here's Natalie Dessay, with a brief vocal contribution from Juan Diego Florez. Lyrics in English here.
P.S Our treat to end our term: we'll play that production of La Sonnambula. And, in a rare departure for Bellini, it has a happy ending.
Lyn, 6/11/23
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