The composer
Vincenzo Bellini: from Catania to Paris
Bellini's short life in nine stops: a musical family in Catania, a scholarship to Naples, the Milan operas, a welcome home and an early death near Paris.
Reserve seats for the concert ↗A musical family in Catania
Vincenzo Bellini was born in Catania in November 1801, the eldest of seven children. His grandfather and his father were both organists and teachers, so music was the family trade: his grandfather had worked as an organist and teacher in Catania since 1767. After 1816 Bellini lived with his grandfather, who gave him his first lessons, and he began to compose young. Some stories of his childhood genius are probably legend, but the household and the lessons are well documented.
A scholarship from his home city
The family could not afford to send him to Naples, so the town stepped in. In May 1819 Catania's city fathers unanimously agreed a four-year pension for his studies at the Real Collegio di Musica in Naples, after the new head of the province and his wife encouraged him to apply. He left home that July carrying letters of introduction to powerful people, and he was to live in Naples for the next eight years.
Naples and the first operas
At the conservatory he studied the Neapolitan masters and the orchestral works of Haydn and Mozart, and he met Francesco Florimo, who became a lifelong friend and his first biographer. His first opera, Adelson e Salvini, was written for the conservatory and performed by an all-male student cast, and it was so popular that it was given every Sunday for a year. His next, Bianca e Gernando, reached the Teatro di San Carlo on 30 May 1826 and was a success.
Milan and Il pirata
Bellini then went to Milan to write for La Scala. Il pirata, first given there on 27 October 1827, was his breakthrough: it filled the house fifteen times in the Milan season, and after productions in Vienna and Naples in 1828 his name began to travel. It was also the first of his collaborations with the librettist Felice Romani, who became his main creative partner.
1831: two masterpieces
La sonnambula opened at the Teatro Carcano in Milan on 6 March 1831, with Giuditta Pasta as Amina and Giovanni Battista Rubini as Elvino. Norma followed at La Scala on 26 December 1831. Its first night was cool, and Bellini wrote of a fiasco, but the second evening went better and the opera soon became a success. Both operas are still staged at major houses, and both give a Bellini programme its best-known arias.
A welcome home
In March 1832 Bellini returned to Catania, where the authorities and citizens gave him a civic welcome, and a concert the next evening included excerpts from La sonnambula and Il pirata. The Teatro Comunale where it was held has since been replaced by the Teatro Massimo Bellini, which opened in 1890 and carries his name. He stayed about a month before going on to Palermo.
Paris and I puritani
Bellini later travelled abroad and wrote I puritani after a visit to London. It premiered at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris in 1835 and was a great success. The King of France named him a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, and the king in Naples awarded him the cross of an order. It capped an international career that had lasted less than ten years.
Puteaux, and the way home
Bellini died at Puteaux, near Paris, on 23 September 1835, at the age of 33. He was buried at Père Lachaise, and attempts to bring him home took decades. In 1876 his remains were moved to Catania Cathedral and reburied there, and the Museo Belliniano in his birthplace now holds his manuscripts. His elaborate tomb in Paris, now empty, still stands beside Rossini's.
What he left
Verdi praised Bellini's expansive melodies as unequalled, Wagner admired how he joined music and text, and Liszt and Chopin were fans too. Many of his operas, including Il pirata, La sonnambula, Norma and I puritani, are still performed at major opera houses. His portrait once appeared on the Italian 5,000 lire banknote. That is why a concert of his music here feels like a local tradition.
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