Difference between revisions of "Vincenzo Bellini" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
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Orrey, Leslie 1969.  ''Bellini''.  J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd., London.  SBN 460 03132 5
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*Orrey, Leslie 1969.  ''Bellini''.  J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd., London.  SBN 460 03132 5
  
Rosselli, John. 1996.  The Life of ''Bellini''.  Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521462274
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*Rosselli, John. 1996.  The Life of ''Bellini''.  Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521462274
  
Weinstock Herbert, 1971.  ''Vincenzo Bellini'', His Life and His Operas.  Alfred A Knopf., New York. ISBN 0-394-41656-2
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*Weinstock Herbert, 1971.  ''Vincenzo Bellini'', His Life and His Operas.  Alfred A Knopf., New York. ISBN 0-394-41656-2
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==

Revision as of 07:09, 17 August 2007

Vincenzo Bellini

Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (November 3, 1801 – September 23, 1835) was a Sicilian opera composer. Known for his flowing melodic lines, Bellini was the quintessential composer of Bel canto opera.

Life

Born in Catania, Sicily, in 1801, Bellini, unusually blond & blue-eyed, a throw-back to his antecedents in central Italy, was a child prodigy from a highly musical family, not unusual for the child of an organist and both his father and grandfather were renowned composers. Legend has it he could sing an air of Valentino Fioravanti at eighteen months, began studying music theory at two, the piano at three, and by the age of five could, apparently, play well, although he never played as well as Rossini. His first composition is said to have dated from his sixth year. Regardless of the veracity of these claims, it is certain that Bellini's future career as a musician was never in doubt.

Having learned from his grandfather, Bellini left provincial Catania in June 1819 to study at the conservatory in Naples, with a stipend from the municipal government of Catania. By 1822 he was in the class of the director Nicolò Zingarelli, studying the masters of the Neapolitan school and the orchestral works of Haydn and Mozart. It was the custom at the Conservatory to introduce a promising student to the public with a dramatic work: the result was Bellini's first opera Adelson e Salvini an opera semiseria that was presented at the Conservatory's theater. Bianca e Gernando met with some success at the Teatro San Carlo, leading to an offer from the impresario Barbaia for an opera at La Scala. Il pirata was a resounding immediate success and began Bellini's faithful and fruitful collaboration with the librettist and poet Felice Romani, and cemented his friendship with his favored tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini, who had sung in Bianca e Gernando.

Bellini spent the next years, 1827–33 in Milan, where all doors were open to him. Supported solely by his opera commissions, for La straniera (1828) was even more successful than Il pirata, sparking controversy in the press for its new style and its restless harmonic shifts into remote keys, he showed the taste for social life and the dandyism that Heinrich Heine emphasized in his literary portrait of Bellini (Florentinische Nächte, 1837). Opening a new theater in Parma, his Zaira (1829) was a failure at the Teatro Ducale, but Venice welcomed I Capuleti e i Montecchi, which was based on the same Italian sources as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

The next five years were triumphant, with major successes with his greatest works, La sonnambula, Norma and I puritani, cut short by Bellini's premature death at thirty four, in 1835.

Bellini died in Puteaux, near Paris of acute inflammation of the intestine, and was buried in the cemetery of Père Lachaise, Paris; his remains were removed to the cathedral of Catania in 1876. The Museo Belliniano, Catania, preserves memorabilia and scores.

Bel Canto

Never clearly defined, Bel Canto does not simply mean 'beautiful singing.' It can be described as the particular art of voice production by which the distinctive timbres of the classical Italian school of singing can be achieved. With the development of Bel Canto, singers aquired a unique ability as to develop as outstanding soloists. The unusual timbres and limpid production that they acquired, together with their messa di voce and coloratura, made their singing of operatic arias famous outside Italy. The tuition of Bel Canto was not based on any explicit theoretical method. It's teachers, the maestri, were themselves expert performers. They instructed their pupils in the same way that they themselves had learned, by trial and error, until their pupils were able to achieve the right vocal quality. Because of this and because they did not make their art explicit, the maestri were suspected of using their teaching method to protect a professional secret. The voice, is a unique instrument. From the earliest times it has been the vehicle to express human feelings - joy, sorrow, love and fear, as well as reactions to external stimuli - astonishment, horror, dislike and hatred. This capacity of the voice was to serve as the model in designing the various wind and string instruments that make up the modern orchestra. However, instruments made by hand or in the factory have never been able to achieve the same flexibility and instrumental performers have striven after this in vain.

For Renee Flemming (modern Diva) Bel Canto represents the culmination of all the elements of great singing. To the sense of line and beauty of tone required in Mozart, bel canto brings extended range and fiery coloratura. It also asks the artist to plumb every emotional depth to flesh out characters that are often loosely drawn. Bel Canto has real structure and demands the exercise of good taste but within these rules there is an exhilarating and creative freedom.

Works

From the age twenty four for the next ten years Bellini composed eleven operas more than half being quite remarkable. This begs the question as to how great his music could have become if he had lived on. 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. However, Bellini did not have the natural fluidity of composing that caused these two to dash off operas in weeks or even days to meet deadlines for he worked much slower, an opera a year was his pace. 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.


Norma

In the ancient forest in which the opening scene of Bellini's Norma unfolds, the Druidess Norma prays to the moon, calling on that "Casta diva" - chaste goddess - to shed her light on that sacred grove. The line of Norma's melody depicts different facets of this light - the repeated high As suggesting the moon's glowing orb, the B flat, its radiant shafts and the caressing descent of the of the chromatic scale, its soft falling light. Thus the moon goddess kisses her anointed and those kisses must be heard in the way that the voice gleams, floats and skates, like silvery light on a mysterious night. Albert Innaurato


Operas

  • Adelson e Salvini (12? February 1825 Teatro del Conservatorio di San Sebastiano, Naples)
  • Bianca e Gernando (30 May 1826, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)
  • Il pirata (27 October 1827, Teatro alla Scala, Milan)
  • Bianca e Fernando (7 April 1828, Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa) [rev of Bianca e Gernando]
  • La straniera (14 Feb 1829, Teatro alla Scala, Milan)
  • Zaira (16 May 1829, Teatro Ducale, Parma)
  • I Capuleti e i Montecchi (11 March 1830, Teatro La Fenice, Venice)
  • La sonnambula (6 March 1831, Teatro Carcano, Milan)
  • Norma (26 December 1831, Teatro alla Scala, Milan)
  • Beatrice di Tenda (16 March 1833, Teatro La Fenice, Venice)
  • I puritani (24 January 1835, Théâtre Italien, Paris)

Other important Bel Canto opera composers

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References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Orrey, Leslie 1969. Bellini. J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd., London. SBN 460 03132 5
  • Rosselli, John. 1996. The Life of Bellini. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521462274
  • Weinstock Herbert, 1971. Vincenzo Bellini, His Life and His Operas. Alfred A Knopf., New York. ISBN 0-394-41656-2

External links

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