La Cultura Italiana
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LA CULTURA ITALIANA VINCENZO BELLINI (1801-1835) This month’s essay is about an Italian opera composer from Sicily who was known primarily for his long-flowing melodic lines that garnered for him the sobriquet “The Swan of Catania.” He was the quintessential composer of Bel Canto opera. He became a master of the varied possibilities of the human voice, teasing out the proficiencies for vocal production. In so doing, he created a novel art which culminated in the Bel Canto style. He saw 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. Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was born in Catania, Sicily, on November 3, 1801, the son of Rosario Bellini and Agata Ferlito Bellini. He was the eldest of his parents’ seven children. He was blond and blue-eyed, unusual for a Sicilian, a throw-back to his ancestors’ roots in central Italy. He was a child prodigy from a highly musical family. His grandfather, Vincenzo Tobia Bellini, had studied at the conservatory in Naples and, in Catania from 1767, had been an organist and teacher, as had Vincenzo’s father, Rosario. Both were also composers of note. An anonymous 12-page hand-written history, held in Catania’s Museo Belliniano, states that Bellini could sing an air of the Italian opera buffa composer, Valentino Fioravanti, at 18 months, that he began studying music theory at age two, the piano at three, and by the age of five could, apparently, play very well. The document states that Bellini’s first five pieces were composed when he was just six years old, and “at seven he was taught Latin, modern languages, rhetoric, and philosophy.” Bellini’s biographer Herbert Weinstock regards some of these accounts as no more than myths, not being supported from other, more reliable sources. Additionally, he makes the point in regard to Bellini’s apparent knowledge of languages and philosophy: “Bellini never became a well- educated man.” Regardless of whether or not all these claims are true, it is certain that Bellini’s future career as a musician was never in doubt. Bellini’s early education was at home—his teachers were primarily priests, brought by the family to educate the young man. In 1816, at the age of 15, Bellini began living with his grandfather, from whom he received his first formal music lessons. Soon after, he began to write more serious and complex compositions, among them the nine Versetti da Cantarsi il Venerdi Santo (Verses to Sing on Good Friday), eight of which were based on texts by the 18th Century Italian poet and librettist, Pietro Metastasio. By 1818, he had completed several additional orchestral pieces, which quickly gained broad approval in Catania, and at least two settings of the Mass Ordinary: one in D Major, the other in G Major (both of these survive and have been commercially recorded). — PAGE 8 — LA CULTURA ITALIANA CONTINUED Bellini’s birthplace, the Palazzo dei Gravina Gruyas, Catania, circa 1800 Also, by 1818, he was ready for further studies, which for well-off students would include moving to Naples. Bellini’s family was not wealthy enough to support such a lifestyle. However, his growing reputation in and around Catania could not be overlooked. His break came when Stefano Notabartolo, the Duca di San Martino e Montalbo, became the new intendente (main administrative officer) of the province of Catania. He and his wife encouraged the young Bellini to petition the city fathers for a stipend to support him during his musical studies. In May, 1819 he was unanimously awarded a four-year pension to allow him to study at the Real Collegio di Musica di San Sebastiano in Naples. In July, he left Catania carrying letters of introduction from Notabartolo to several powerful persons, including Giovanni Carafa who was the intendente of the Real Collegio as well as the person in charge of the royal theaters in Naples. Bellini was to live in Naples for the following eight years. Although he started off in elementary classes, he progressed rapidly and was granted free tuition by 1820. By 1822, he was in the class of the artistic director and headmaster of the school, the opera composer Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli, studying the masters of the Neapolitan school and the orchestral works of Haydn and Mozart. (Zingarelli appears to have recognized Bellini’s potential and treated him like a son). Zingarelli detested the brilliant reigning composer of the moment, Rossini, and wanted to return to the plainer style of the past, with emotions of gentle and dignified pathos. He pushed Bellini in this direction and emphasized to him that a composition must “sing” if it was to touch the heart and move the audience. One can see Bellini’s acceptance of his master’s approach in several sacred works and small instrumental pieces that he was required to compose at the school. (However, it is in his most famous operatic works where one can really see his acceptance and full creative development of Zingarelli’s guiding ideas). By 1824, he had become a primo maestrino (first teacher, i.e. tutor) to entering students. — PAGE 9 — LA CULTURA ITALIANA CONTINUED EARLY OPERAS AND INTERNATIONAL FAME It was the custom at the Conservatory to introduce a promising student to the public with a dramatic work. The result of this was Bellini’s first opera Adelson e Salvini , which was an opera semiseria (semi-serious opera, i.e. serious but with a happy ending) chosen by the conservatory’s students to be performed in the Conservatory’s theater by an all-male cast made up of students. After its initial performance in February, 1825, it proved to be so popular that the student body demanded it be performed every Sunday for an entire year. Adelson e Salvini was never performed outside of the Conservatory, but it did, however, serve as a source of material for at least five other operas Bellini composed. In the summer or early autumn of 1825 Bellini began work on what was to become his first professionally produced opera. A contract between the Conservatory and the royal theaters in Naples obliged the Conservatory—when it nominated a sufficiently talented student—to require that student to write a cantata or one-act opera to be presented on a gala evening in one of the theaters. After Zingarelli (left) used his influence to secure this honor for his promising student, Bellini was able to obtain agreement that he could write a full-length opera and, furthermore, that the libretto did not have to be written by Tottola, who was the theater’s official dramatic poet. Instead, Bellini chose Domenico Gilardoni, a young writer who then prepared his first libretto, which he namedBianca e Fernando, based on an 1820 play, Bianca e Fernando alla Tomba di Carlo IV, Duca d’Agrigento (Bianca and Fernando at the Tomb of Charles IV, Duke of Agrigento) and set in Sicily. However, the title Bianca e Fernando had to be changed since “Ferdinando” was the name of the heir to the throne, and no form of it could be used on a royal stage. After some delays caused by King Francesco I forcing postponement, the opera—now named Bianca e Gernando—was given its premiere performance at the Teatro di San Carlo on May 30, 1826 (the feast day of St. Ferdinand, the namesake of Prince Ferdinando). This second opera was very successful, helped by the approval of the King, and Bellini’s music was highly regarded. Donizetti, who attended the premiere, enthusiastically wrote afterward to the opera composer, Giovanni Simone Mayr: “It is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, especially as it is his first opera.” Within nine months of the success of Bianca, in February/March 1827, Domenico Barbaja offered Bellini another commission, this time for an opera to be presented in the autumn of 1827 at La Scala in Milan, which Barbaja was also part of the management at the time. Bellini spent 1827 to 1833 mostly in Milan, never holding any official position with an opera company and living solely on the income produced from his compositions, for which he was — PAGE 10 — LA CULTURA ITALIANA CONTINUED able to ask higher than usual fees. It was at this time that he composed his third opera—Il Pirata (The Pirate, 1827), which was the result of Barbaja’s new commission. Bellini’s collaborator, the poet Felice Romani (right), wrote the libretto. This led to the longterm friendship and collaboration between Bellini and Romani that would produce some of Bellini’s most important and popular operas. (Il Pirata also cemented Bellini’s friendship with his favorite tenor, Giovanni Battista Rubini, who had sung in Bianca e Gernando). The premiere of Il Pirata on October 27, 1827, at La Scala in Milan, established Bellini as an internationally acclaimed opera composer. OPERAS FOLLOWING BELLINI’S INTERNATIONAL NOTORIETY Bellini spent the next years, 1827–1833 in Milan, where all doors were open to him. 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. Supported solely by his opera commissions, he produced La Straniera (The Foreigner, 1828), which was even more successful than Il Pirata. This opera sparked controversy in the press for its new style and its restless harmonic shifts into remote keys, something different and experimental that the public loved.