Editing I puritani (section)

==Composition history==

===Search for a suitable source for a libretto===
[[File:Belgiosjoso-detail from 764px.jpg|thumb|upright|Cristina Trivulzio Belgiojoso 1832, by [[Francesco Hayez]] (detail)]]

Upon his arrival in Paris, Bellini quickly entered into the fashionable world of the Parisian [[Salon (gathering)|salons]], including that run by [[Cristina Trivulzio Belgiojoso|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.<ref>Bellini to Florimo, 11 March 1834, in {{harvnb|Weinstock|1971|p=159}}: "If you reflect for a moment that a young man in my position, in London and Paris for the first time, cannot help amusing himself immensely, you will excuse me."</ref>

[[File:Salle Favart (première salle).jpg|thumb|left|In 1829 the [[19th-century Théâtre-Italien|Théâtre-Italien]] was performing in the first Salle Favart]]

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".<ref name=WEIN160 />

In the same letter he tells of working towards finding a subject with the Italian émigré, Count Pepoli, who had not written a libretto before. However, on 11 April he is able to say in a letter to Ferlito that he was well and that "I have chosen the story for my Paris opera; it is of the times of Cromvello [Cromwell], after he had King Charles I of England beheaded."<ref name=WEIN160>Bellini to Vincenzo Ferlito, 11 April 1834, in {{harvnb|Weinstock|1971|pp=160–162}}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Weaver|1987|p=19}}

===Working with Pepoli===
[[File:Carlo Pepoli.jpg|thumb|upright|Librettist Carlo&nbsp;Pepoli]]
In his letter to Ferlito of 11 April, Bellini provides a synopsis of the opera, indicating that his favourite singers, [[Giulia Grisi]], [[Luigi Lablache]], [[Giovanni Battista Rubini]], and [[Antonio Tamburini]], would all be available for the principal roles, and that he would begin to write the music by 15 April if he had received the verses. Before the collaboration had got underway and initially impressed by the quality of Pepoli's verses in general,<ref>Bellini to Florimo, date uncertain, in {{harvnb|Weaver|1987|p=16}}</ref> Bellini had prepared the way for his librettist by providing him with a scenario of thirty-nine scenes (thus compressing the original drama into manageable proportions), reducing the number of characters from nine to seven and at the same time, giving them names of a more Italianate, singable quality.<ref name=WEIN160 />

But a month later, he comments to Florimo on what it takes working on the libretto with Pepoli: "keeping [Pepoli] moving ahead costs me a lot of weariness; he lacks practice which is a great thing [to have]."<ref>Bellini to Florimo, 26 May 1834, in {{harvnb|Weinstock|1971|p=163}}</ref> For Bellini, the process of both overseeing the writing of the libretto and working with Pepoli was a struggle, added to by a period of illness. But, to balance the situation, William Weaver comments that "to some extent Bellini could compensate for Pepoli's deficiencies with his own first-hand theatrical experience" and suggests that some of that experience had been "acquired from Romani."<ref name="WEAV18" />

Continuing to work on the yet-unnamed ''I puritani'', Bellini moved from central Paris, and at some time in the late Spring (specific date unknown) Bellini wrote to Pepoli to remind him that he should bring his work with him the following day "so that we can finish discussing the first act, which...will be interesting, magnificent, and proper poetry for music in spite of you and all your absurd rules..."<ref name=WEIN170>Bellini to Pepoli, no date given, in {{harvnb|Weinstock|1971|pp=170–171}}</ref> At the same time, he laid out one basic rule for the librettist to follow:
<blockquote>Carve into your head in adamantine letters: ''The opera must draw tears, terrify people, make them die through singing''<ref name=WEIN170 /></blockquote>

By late June, there had been considerable progress and, in a letter copied into one written to Florimo on 25 July, Bellini writes in reply to {{ill|Alessandro Lanari|fr}}, now the director of the Royal Theatres of Naples, telling him that the first act of ''Puritani'' is finished and that he expects to complete the opera by September, in order that he may then have time to write a new opera for Naples for the following year. Finally, Bellini stated that he did not want "to negotiate with anybody until I see what success my opera will have". This included a proposal from the [[Opéra-Comique]] in Paris for a new opera for that company.<ref>Bellini to Santocanale, 21 September 1834, in {{harvnb|Weinstock|1971|p=173}}</ref>

When nothing came of negotiations with Naples for a new opera, Bellini composed an alternative version intended for the famous [[Maria Malibran]], who was to sing Amina (in ''[[La sonnambula]]'') at the [[Teatro di San Carlo]] in Naples in 1835. However, she died exactly a year to the day after the composer, and so this version was not performed on stage until 10 April 1986 at the [[Teatro Petruzzelli]] in [[Bari]], with [[Katia Ricciarelli]] in the title role.

====Critical reaction to Pepoli's work on ''Puritani''====
[[File:Disegno per copertina di libretto, disegno di Peter Hoffer per I Puritani (s.d.) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON012420.jpg|thumb|Drawing for a cover of ''I puritani'' (undated)]]
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:
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>

Quoting Pepoli, Smart continues: "for this song [the "Marseillaise"] the people fight, win, triumph: Europe and the world shouted ''Liberty!''".<ref name=SMART>{{harvnb|Smart|2010|pp=40–43}}</ref> Smart then examines the relationship between Pepoli's 1830 views and how they appear to be manifested in what he wrote for ''I puritani'':
<blockquote>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')."</blockquote>

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..."<ref>Bellini to Pepoli, 30 May 1834, in {{harvnb|Weaver|1987|p=17}}</ref>

===Perceived competition from Donizetti===
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 puritani''{{'}}s 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.<ref>Bellini to Florimo, 11 March 1834, in {{harvnb|Weinstock|1971|p=163}}</ref> As it transpired, Bellini's total success vastly outshone Donizetti's moderate one (''[[Marin Faliero]]'', given in March 1835, two months after ''I puritani'').

===The score is completed===
By September Bellini was writing to Florimo of being able to "polish and re-polish" in the three remaining months before rehearsals and he expresses happiness with Pepoli's verses ("a very beautiful trio for the two basses and ''La Grisi''") and by around mid-December he had submitted the score for Rossini's approval.

Rossini is known to have recommended one change to the placement of the "Hymn to Liberty", which had initially appeared in the first act but which Bellini had already realised could not remain in its written form if the opera was to be given in Italy. Instead of two acts, with the "Hymn" appearing midway in the second act, Rossini proposed that it be a three-act opera with ''Suoni la tromba'' ending act 2, arguing that the effect would always be likely to create an ovation, something which he rightly foretold.<ref name=WEAV18 />

Throughout his stay in Paris, Bellini had cultivated the older composer and had maintained a friendship with him: "I have always adored Rossini, and I succeeded, and happily ... [having] tamed Rossini's [perceived] hatred, I no longer was frightened and finished that work of mine which won me so much honour".<ref>Bellini to Vincenzo Ferlito, [day, month unknown] 1835 after ''Puritani''{{'}}s success, in {{harvnb|Weinstock|1971|pp=163–164}}</ref> Later, the successful dress rehearsal, he wrote: "... my very dear Rossini ... now loves me as a son".<ref name=WEIN179>Letters from Bellini to Florimo, in {{harvnb|Weinstock|1971|pp=179–182}}</ref>

With rehearsals planned for late December/early January,<ref name=WEIN179 /> the dress rehearsal took place on 20 January 1835. It was attended by "all of high society, all the great artists, and everyone most distinguished in Paris were in the theatre, enthusiastic." Bellini's ecstatic letter to Florimo which followed the dress rehearsal recounts the enthusiastic reception of many of the numbers throughout the performance, most especially the second act bass duet, so that, by its end:
<blockquote>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 ... I showed myself to the audience, which shouted as if insane ... How satisfied I am! [He concludes by noting the success of the singers]: "Lablache sang like a god, Grisi like a little angel, Rubini and Tamburini the same."<ref name="Florimo, 1971, p. 184" /></blockquote>

It was upon Rossini's advice and after the dress rehearsal that the opera was changed from two acts to three, the second act ending after the ''Suoni la tromba'' duet for the two basses.{{sfn|Galatopoulos|2002|p=364}}

The premiere, postponed by two days, took place on 24 January 1835.