Беллинидің «Пуритандықтар» операсы

Opera by Vincenzo Bellini

I puritani (The Puritans) is an 1835 opera by Vincenzo Bellini. It was originally written in two acts and later changed to three acts on the advice of Gioachino Rossini, with whom the young composer had become friends. The music was set to a libretto by Count Carlo Pepoli, an Italian émigré poet whom Bellini had met at a salon run by the exile Princess Belgiojoso, which became a meeting place for many Italian revolutionaries. The opera is based on Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers (Roundheads and Cavaliers), a historical play written by Jacques François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine and set in the English Civil War, which some sources state was based on Walter Scott's 1816 novel Old Mortality, while others state that there is no connection. When Bellini arrived in Paris in mid August 1833, he had intended to stay only about three weeks, the main aim being to continue the negotiations with the Paris Opéra which had begun on his way to London a few months earlier. These negotiations came to nothing, but by October he had decided to spend the winter in that city, especially as both Il pirata and I Capuleti e i Montecchi were to be given by the Théâtre Italien that season. The offer from the Théâtre came in January 1834; he accepted because "the pay was richer than what I had received in Italy up to then, though only by a little; then because of so magnificent a company; and finally so as to remain in Paris at others' expense." Taking from April until its premiere the following January, Bellini had time to ensure that the opera was as close to perfection as possible. After the premiere, Bellini reported to his friend Francesco Florimo in Naples that:
The French had all gone mad; there were such noise and such shouts that they themselves were astonished at being so carried away In a word, my dear Florimo, it was an unheard of thing, and since Saturday, Paris has spoken of it in amazement
It was to be Bellini's final work; he died in September 1835 at the age of 33.

Upon his arrival in Paris, Bellini quickly entered into the fashionable world of the Parisian salons, including that run by Princess Belgiojoso whom he had met in Milan. In addition to the many writers of the time, among the musical figures which he would have encountered were several Italians such as Michele Carafa and Luigi Cherubini, then in his seventies. Thus, for most of the remainder of 1833, Bellini's musical activity was very limited. He pleaded guilty in the letter to Florimo in March 1834 noting that the city's attractions were immense. The contract to write a new opera for the Théâtre Italien, which was signed in January 1834, called for it to be presented at the end of that year. Once it was signed, Bellini began to look around for a suitable subject and, in a letter to Florimo of 11 March 1834, he expresses some frustrations, noting: "I am about to lose my mind over the plot of the opera for Paris, as it has been impossible to find a suitable subject for my purpose and adaptable to the company". The chosen source of the libretto was identified as a play performed in Paris only six months before in September 1833. When first shown the play and other possible subjects by Pepoli, in the opinion of writer William Weaver, "it was clearly the heroine's madness that attracted the composer and determined his choice.

Given Bellini's own expressions of frustration at working with a new librettist for the first time, one musicologist, Mary Ann Smart, provides a different point of view in regard to Pepoli's approach to writing a libretto. Firstly, she addresses the issue of Pepoli's inexperience:
An address that Pepoli delivered to prize winning students in Bologna in 1830 reveals not only a surprisingly broad grasp of operatic repertoire but also some forceful ideas about how music could provoke political feeling. Pepoli adopts a modern aesthetic agenda, condemning vocal ornamentation as a dilution of dramatic sense and attacking imitation as cheapening music's inherent, nonverbal language. After touching on exemplary passages from operas by Francesco Morlacchi, Nicola Vaccai, and Vincenzo Bellini, Pepoli turns to the "Marseillaise", arguing that it melds music and poetry perfectly to arouse feeling and provoke action. Quoting Pepoli, Smart continues: "for this song [the "Marseillaise"] the people fight, win, triumph: Europe and the world shouted Liberty!". Smart then examines the relationship between Pepoli's 1830 views and how they appear to be manifested in what he wrote for I puritani:
The Italian phrase Pepoli uses here, [i. e. in discussing the "Marseillaise"] gridavano Libertà, strikingly anticipates the duet "Suoni la tromba" in I puritani, in which the two basses step outside of the opera's dreamy and non teleological plot for an isolated moment of patriotic fervor. For their homeland they will take up arms and gladly face death: Suoni la tromba, e intrepido/ Io pugnerò da forte/ Bello è affrontar la morte gridando "Libertà" ("Let the trumpet sound, and fearless I'll fight with all my strength. It is beautiful to face death shouting 'liberty')." Then she recounts how Bellini reacted to what she describes as Pepoli’s "hotheaded patriotism" which appears in librettist's poetry. When he wrote to Pepoli that his "liberal bent terrifies me", Bellini's other concern, which proved to be correct, was that words such as libertà would have to be removed if the opera was to be performed in Italy. Nevertheless, the Suoni la tromba which Bellini described as his "Hymn to Liberty" and which had initially been placed in the opera's first act was enthusiastically received by the composer: "My dear Pepoli, I hasten to express my great satisfaction with the duet I received by post this morning the whole is magnificent "

Around the middle of April 1834, Bellini became concerned when he learned that Gaetano Donizetti would be composing for the Théâtre Italien during the same season as the one for which he was writing. According to Weinstock, quoting letters sent to Florimo in Italy at around that time (and continuing almost up to I puritanis premiere), Bellini perceived this to be a plot orchestrated by Rossini and, in a long, rambling letter of 2,500 words to Florino of 11 March 1834, he expressed his frustrations. As it transpired, Bellini's total success vastly outshone Donizetti's moderate one (Marin Faliero, given in March 1835, two months after I puritani).