52 Facts About Vincenzo Bellini

Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Sicilian opera composer, who was known for his long-flowing melodic lines for which he was named "the Swan of Catania".

Vincenzo Bellini was the quintessential composer of the Italian bel canto era of the early 19th century, and his work has been summed up by the London critic Tim Ashley as:.

Those musicologists who consider Vincenzo Bellini to be merely a melancholic tunesmith are now in the minority.

Vincenzo Bellini's break came when Stefano Notabartolo, the duca di San Martino e Montalbo and his duchess, became the new intendente of the province of Catania.

The young Vincenzo Bellini was to live in Naples for the following eight years.

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About 50 years later, Florimo gave an account of the meeting of the two men: "Carlo Conti [one of Vincenzo Bellini's tutors] said to Vincenzo Bellini and me, "Go and hear Donizetti's La zingara, for which my admiration increases at every performance.

Increasingly, Vincenzo Bellini did better and better in his studies: in January 1820 he passed his examinations in theory, and was successful enough to gain an annual scholarship, which meant that his stipend from Catania could be used to help his family.

Vincenzo Bellini was determined to obtain the parents' permission for them to marry, and some writers regard this as the propelling reason for his writing his first opera.

Vincenzo Bellini spent 1827 to 1833 mostly in Milan, never holding any official position within an opera company and living solely from the income produced from his compositions, for which he was able to ask higher than usual fees.

Vincenzo Bellini immediately proposed a revival and re-working of Bianca e Gernando, this time with the original title Bianca e Fernando, there being no royal by the name of Fernando in the House of Savoy.

Romani wrote to Florimo in Naples and told him that he had taken on the re-construction of the libretto, with the result that "out of the whole of Bianca, the only pieces entirely unchanged are the big duet and the romanza; everything else is altered, and about half of it is new", Vincenzo Bellini then re-arranged the music to suit the singers' voices, now knowing that the Bianca was to be Adelaide Tosi and the Fernando to be Giovanni David.

La straniera, Vincenzo Bellini received a fee which was sufficient for him to be able to make his living solely by composing music, and this new work became an even greater success than Il pirata had been.

Filippo Cicconetti, in his 1859 biography, gives an account of Vincenzo Bellini's working methods, explaining how he set texts to music always with the words in front of him in order to see how inspired to compose he might become.

At around the same time, Vincenzo Bellini reported to Florimo that he had been approached by Merelli about writing an inaugural opera for the soon-to-be completed Teatro Ducale in Parma which was due to open during the following year on 12 May 1829.

Vincenzo Bellini accepted both offers, but the La Fenice impresario included a proviso that if he were to be unable to fulfill the Venice contract, then it would be transferred to Bellini.

Vincenzo Bellini then became preoccupied with staging a revival of his Il pirata during the summer season at the Teatro Canobbiana because La Scala was closed for repairs.

Vincenzo Bellini saw the Il Pirata production and met Bellini; the two men were taken with each other, to the extent that when the younger composer was in Paris a year or two later, he developed a very strong bond with Rossini.

Vincenzo Bellini took Giulietta's "Oh quante volte" and Nelly's romanza from Adelson e Salvini.

When Vincenzo Bellini laid out his terms for writing for Milan, Litta gave him a very favourable response: "I shall earn almost twice as much as if I had composed for Crivelli [then the Venetian impresario]" he noted in a letter to his uncle.

Vincenzo Bellini then experienced the re-occurrence of an illness which had emerged in Venice due to pressure of work and the bad weather, but which consistently recurred after each opera and which would eventually cause his death.

Rather than resting, Vincenzo Bellini immediately set off for Bergamo to stage La straniera, then went back to the mountains.

Vincenzo Bellini provided Bellini with precise details of his vocal capabilities which were confirmed by a report which Mercadante provided.

Vincenzo Bellini then had to deal with the issue of piracy in regard to vocal reductions for piano of La sonnambula as published by Casa Ricordi.

Vincenzo Bellini's felt that it was "ill adapted to her vocal abilities", but Bellini was able to persuade her to keep trying for a week, after which she adapted to it and confessed her earlier error.

Vincenzo Bellini left Milan for Naples, and then Sicily, on 5 January 1832, but for the first time since 1827, it was a year in which he did not write an opera.

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Vincenzo Bellini was greeted by the city's authorities and citizens who feted him at a concert the following evening.

Vincenzo Bellini continues by stating that, in addition, he will receive one hundred percent of the rental rights of the scores.

Vincenzo Bellini is a man of good will, and I want him to show it in wanting to prepare at least the first act for me swiftly.

Vincenzo Bellini holed up to write Bellini's libretto, but, at the same time, Donizetti was equally incensed at delays in receiving a libretto from Romani for an opera which was to be Parisina.

In conclusion, Vincenzo Bellini suggests "draw[ing] a veil over everything that happened", stating that he cannot come to Milan at this time but, since he was planning to write the opera for Naples for 1836, he could do so in January [1835: presumably after I puritani].

Vincenzo Bellini ends by saying that, if he does not hear back from Romani, he will not write to him again.

When he arrived in Paris in mid-August 1833, Vincenzo Bellini had intended to stay only about three weeks, the main aim being to continue the negotiations with the Opera which had begun on his way to London a few months earlier.

Vincenzo Bellini wrote to Florimo, telling him about the lodgings and that he had written to Turina not to sell any of his furniture, but to send some of it to him.

Quickly, Vincenzo Bellini entered the fashionable world of the Parisian salon, most importantly that run by the Italian exile Princess Belgiojoso whom he had met in Milan and who "was by far the most overtly political of the salonnieres".

However, during the time during which he was composing Puritani, Vincenzo Bellini recounted the details of another bout of what he describes as "gastric fever" and which Weinstock describes as "that brief indisposition, which had been recurring almost every year at the onset of warm weather".

Vincenzo Bellini referred to the offer from Naples for April 1836 and noting his financial demands with the questions as to how this might be received.

Finally, Vincenzo Bellini stated that he did not want "to negotiate with anybody until I see what success my opera will have".

Vincenzo Bellini then dedicated I puritiani "To the Queen of the French", Queen Marie-Emelie.

At one of the literary gatherings which Vincenzo Bellini attended earlier in the year, Vincenzo Bellini met the writer Heinrich Heine.

Also, Heine's literary portrait of Vincenzo Bellini, which became part of his unfinished novel Florentinische Nachte published in 1837, emphasized the less-appealing aspects of the composer's personality, summing up a description of him as "a sigh in dancing pumps".

Vincenzo Bellini failed to appear, instead he sent a note stating that he was too ill.

Vincenzo Bellini ordered that a post-mortem be performed, following an order which came directly from the King.

When planning the subject of his next opera after La Scala's Il pirata, Vincenzo Bellini had been invited to write an opera for Parma's inauguration of the new Teatro Ducale in early 1829.

Vincenzo Bellini was a notorious womanizer as evidenced in his letters to Francesco Florimo.

One of the closest people in Vincenzo Bellini's life was Francesco Florimo, whom he met as a fellow student at the Naples Conservatory.

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Once Vincenzo Bellini left Naples for Milan, the two men seldom saw one another; their last meeting was in Naples in late 1832, when Vincenzo Bellini was there with Giuditta Turina, before the pair departed for Milan via Florence.

In later years, Vincenzo Bellini declared that Florimo "was the only friend in whom [I] could find comfort".

At some time before March 1828, after the major success of Il pirata and just as Vincenzo Bellini was about to leave Milan for his production of Bianca e Ferdinando in Genoa, he received a notification from his go-between with the Fumaroli family that they had withdrawn their rejection of his proposal.

One significant relationship which Vincenzo Bellini had after 1828 was the five-year relationship with Giuditta Turina, a young married woman with whom he began a passionate affair when both were in Genoa in April 1828 for the production of Bianca e Fernando.

For Vincenzo Bellini, it meant the possibility of taking on responsibility for her, and he had no interest in doing that, having cooled in his feelings for her.

When Turina announced that she was leaving her husband, Vincenzo Bellini left her, saying "with so many commitments, such a relationship would be fatal to me, " expressing his fear of romantic attachments getting in the way of his musical career.

Florimo eventually returned the friendship and, as Galatopoulos notes, "the death of Vincenzo Bellini was a mutual loss and Florimo needed Giuditta as much as she needed him" so that the two corresponded for years and Florimo visited her in Milan "at least once, in 1858".