Vincenzo Bellini

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(b Catania, 3 Nov 1801; d Puteaux, 23 Sept 1835). Italian composer. He was given piano lessons by his father, and could play well when he was five. At six he wrote a Gallus cantavit and began studying composition with his grandfather. After a few years his sacred pieces were being heard in Catania churches and his ariettas and instrumental works in the salons of aristocrats and patricians. In 1819 he went to Naples to study at the conservatory, entering the class of the director, Nicola Zingarelli, in 1822. In 1825 his opera semiseria, Adelson e Salvini, was produced at the conservatory. Its success led to commissions from the Teatro S Carlo and from La Scala, Milan.

Bellini's first opera for Milan, Il pirata (1827), instantly laid the foundation of his career, and with it began his fruitful collaborations with the librettist Felice Romani and the tenor G. B. Rubini. From 1827 to 1833 Bellini lived mostly in Milan, and during this time his operas, including La sonnambula and Norma, earned him an international reputation, while he himself went through a passionate love affair with Giuditta Cantù, the wife of a landowner and silk manufacturer, Ferdinando Turina. Bellini's amatory entanglements have been romanticized in popular literature but the realities are less creditable.

In 1833 Bellini visited London, where four of his operas were performed with great success at the King's Theatre and Drury Lane. He then proceeded to Paris, where he was commissioned to write I puritani for the Théâtre-Italien and formed a close acquaintance with Rossini and got to know Chopin and other musicians. I puritani enjoyed a genuine triumph in January 1835, and Bellini was appointed a Chevalier de la Légion d′honneur. He decided to remain in Paris and formulated several projects for his future there, but in August 1835 he fell ill and the following month he died, from ‘an acute inflammation of the large intestine, complicated by an abscess of the liver’ according to the post-mortem report.

Bellini's importance to posterity is as a composer of opera, especially opera seria; his other works can be ignored without great loss. His first influences were the folksong of Sicily and Naples, the teaching of Zingarelli and, above all, the music of Rossini. The Naples performance of Rossini's Semiramide in 1824 was one of the most decisive musical experiences of his student years, and the novel lyrical style of his early operas represented a sentimentalization and heightening of Rossinian lyricism, which in Il pirata broadens to include forceful and dramatic emotions. With this opera Bellini became one of Italy's most influential composers; Donizetti and Pacini, Mercadante and Verdi all learnt from him.

The quintessential feature of Bellini's operatic music is its close relationship with the text. He did not look for musical delineation of character, but the content and mood of each scene are given thorough-going musical interpretation and the text is precisely declaimed. His melodic style, of which the famous ‘Casta diva’ in Norma is a perfect example, is characterized by the building of broad melodic curves from small (usually two-bar) units. While his treatment of rhythm is more conventional, his melodies are supported by some colourful harmony and reticent though effective orchestration. More than any other Italian composer of the years around 1830, Bellini minimized the difference between aria and recitative by introducing a large number of cantabile, aria-like passages into his recitative. His expressive range goes far beyond the delicate, elegiac aspects of his art, which have been frequently overemphasized.

works:
Operas

• Il pirata (1827)
• La straniera (1829)
• I Capuleti e i Montecchi (1830)
• La sonnambula (1831)
• Norma (1831)
• Beatrice di Tenda (1833)
• I puritani (1835)
• 3 others

Sacred music

• Mass
• Magnificat
• 5 Tantum ergo
• 2 Te Deum
• hymns, motets (all before 1825)

Other works

• ariettas
• 6 sinfonie
• Ob. Conc.
• kbd pieces

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The operas of the Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) form a link between the Italian tradition of the early 19th century and the late 19th century.

Vincenzo Bellini was born in Catania, Sicily. His father, Rosario, and grandfather, Vincenzo, held positions with the Biscari family and in local churches. Although both composed, none of their music is extant. Bellini displayed musical talent very early, learning to play piano at 3 and studying composition with his father at 6. His earliest works, written before he was 11 years old, have not been preserved. After studying with his grandfather, Bellini attended the Royal College of St. Sebastian in Naples, which was directed by Nicola Zingarelli, who composed both opera and church music. As important as the more conservative tradition of Zingarelli in Naples was that of the contemporary operatic scene, then dominated by Gioacchino Rossini.

Bellini's first opera, Adelson e Salvini, was performed at the Conservatory in 1825 and led to a commission from the impresario of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples for Bianca e Fernando. Between 1825 and 1835 Bellini composed 10 operas for Naples, Milan, Genoa, Parma, Venice, and Paris; all but two had some success. After the presentation of La Sonnambula in 1830, his European success was assured. Bellini was fortunate in having the services of one of the better librettists in Italy, Felice Romani, who, after 1827, wrote the librettos for all of his operas except the last, I Puritani. Bellini's mature operas were opere serie of varying types. His three masterpieces are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi, La Sonnambula, and Norma. I Puritani, written somewhat in the manner of French grand opera, suffers from a weak libretto. Bellini also composed at least 28 sacred vocal works, 23 secular vocal works, 7 symphonies, and an oboe concerto.

Although Bellini made no significant changes in the outward structure of Italian opera, he did make certain contributions. His melodic style, often compared to that of Frédéric Chopin in its careful treatment of ornamentation, was written with the Italian bel canto style of singing in mind. Passages that seem uninteresting on paper come to life in performance by a gifted singer. In his recitatives Bellini gave careful consideration to text accents and moments of intense emotional expression. His handling of the orchestra in both recitative and aria always supports the dramatic intention. He gave the chorus an important role in the drama, instead of the perfunctory one then common. His influence was felt not only by his contempories but also by Giuseppe Verdi. Even that bitter critic of Italian opera, Richard Wagner, was impressed by Norma.

Further Reading

A full-length biography is Leslie Orrey, Bellini (1969). Bellini's relationship to other composers of his period is discussed in Alfred Einstein, Music in the Romantic Era (1947), and Donald J. Grout, A Short History of Opera (2 vols., 1947; 2d ed., 1 vol., 1965).

Additional Sources

Adamo, Maria Rosaria, Vincenzo Bellini, Torino: ERI, 1981.

Brunel, Pierre, Vincenzo Bellini, Paris: Fayard, 1981.

Rosselli, John, The life of Bellini, Cambridge, England; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Tintori, Giampiero, Bellini, Milano: Rusconi, 1983.

• Period: Romantic (1820-1869)
• Country: Italy
• Born: November 03, 1801 in Catania, Italy
• Died: September 23, 1835 in Puteaux, France
• Genres: Choral Music, Miscellaneous Music, Opera, Vocal Music

Biography

Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was one of the most important composers of Italian opera in his time. He was born in 1801 in Catanina, Sicily, to a family already steeped in music; his father and grandfather were both career musicians. He began composing before receiving any formal music education. Bellini developed a reputation for fine craftsmanship, particularly in the way he forged an intricate relationship between the music and the libretto. To perform one of his operas, singers required extremely agile voices. His abilities and talent earned him the admiration of other composers, including Berlioz, Chopin, and even Wagner, and his flowing, exquisitely sculpted vocal lines represent the epitome of the bel canto ideal.

Bellini entered the Royal College of Music of San Sebastiano, now the Naples Conservatory, in 1819. Although he started off in elementary classes, he progressed rapidly and was granted free tuition by 1820. He soon developed into a teacher, becoming a primo maestrino in 1824. Bellini's first opera, Adelson e Salvini, was chosen to be performed by the conservatory's students. After the initial performance in February 1825, it was performed repeatedly throughout the year. This particular work was never performed outside of the conservatory, but it did serve as a source of material for at least five other operas Bellini composed. Shortly thereafter, Domenico Barbaja of the San Carlo Opera offered Bellini his first commission for an opera, which resulted in Bianca e Gernando (1826). That first commission was followed by a second from Barbaja, Il pirata (1827), and led to a long-term collaboration between Bellini and librettist Felice Romani. The premiere of Il pirata on October 27, 1827, at La Scala, Milan, established Bellini as an internationally acclaimed opera composer.

As Bellini gained experience and recognition, he settled into a working method that stressed quality instead of quantity. He composed fewer operas, for which he commanded higher prices. He was not, however, immune to the pressures of production. His opera Zaira (1829), written with Romani for the inauguration of the Teatro Ducale at Parma, was hurriedly completed; the opera was a notable failure and was never produced again. He rebounded, though, with I Capuleti e i Montecchi (based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) in 1830.

The year 1831 proved most successful for Bellini as two of his most famous operas, La sonnambula and Norma, were produced. Although Norma was unenthusiastically received, many critics and Bellini himself believed it to be his finest work. Its aria "Casta diva" is one of the evergreens of the classical vocal repertory. These two operas were followed by a less successful composition, Beatrice di Tenda. This opera was premiered at La Fenice, Venice, on March 16, 1833, a month later than scheduled; the failure led to the falling out of Bellini and Romani.

Bellini spent the summer of 1833 in London directing performances of his operas. He then moved to Paris, where he composed and produced his last opera, I puritani, which premiered on January 24, 1835. The libretto for this particular opera was written by the exiled Italian poet Count Carlo Pepoli. Unlike Bellini's previous two operas, I puritani was enthusiastically received. At the height of his career and only 33 years old, Bellini died of a chronic intestinal ailment on September 23, 1835, in a small town near near Paris. ~ Bruce Lundgren, All Music Guide

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