Crossword Dictionary

vincenzo bellini

Vincenzo Bellini, (born November 3, 1801, Catania, Sicily [Italy]—died September 23, 1835, Puteaux, near Paris, France), was an Italian operatic composer with a gift for creating vocal melody at once pure in style and sensuous in expression. His influence is reflected not only in later operatic compositions, including the early works of Richard Wagner, but also in the instrumental music of Chopin and Liszt.

Born into a family of musicians, Bellini produced his first works while still a student at the Naples Conservatory, where he had been sent by his father, an organist. Bellini gained the patronage of an important impresario, who commissioned Bianca e Fernando for the Naples opera.

Il pirata (1827), written for La Scala, the opera house at Milan, earned him an international reputation. Bellini was fortunate in having as librettist the best Italian theatre poet of the day, Felice Romani, with whom he collaborated in his next six operas. The most important of these were I Capuleti e i Montecchi (1830), based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; La sonnambula (1831; The Sleepwalker); and Norma (1831). La sonnambula, an opera semiseria (serious but with a happy ending), became very popular, even in England, where an English version appeared. Bellini’s masterpiece, Norma, a tragedy set in ancient Gaul, achieved lasting success despite an initial failure.

In London, composer Gioachino Rossini’s influence secured for Bellini a commission to write an opera for the Théâtre-Italien. The result was I puritani (1835), the last of Bellini’s nine operas; although handicapped by an inept libretto, it is in many ways his most ambitious and beautiful work.