Editing Norma (opera) (section)

== Performance history ==
[[File:Bellin-Norma poster for 1831 premiere.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Poster advertising the 1831 premiere]]
[[File:Domenico Donzelli Litho B.jpg|right|thumb|upright|Domenico Donzelli sang Pollione]]
[[File:Giulia Crisi AEhrlichSängerinnen1895.jpg|right|thumb|upright|Giulia Grisi sang Adalgisa]]
[[File:Vincenzo Negrini by Antonio Ramacci.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Vincenzo Negrini sang Oroveso]]

=== Premiere performances ===
After rehearsals began on 5 December, Pasta balked at singing the "Casta diva" in act 1, now one of the most famous [[aria]]s of the nineteenth century. She felt that it was "ill adapted to her vocal abilities",<ref>Sherillo{{who|date=July 2021}}, in {{harvnb|Weinstock|1971|p=104}}</ref> but Bellini was able to persuade her to keep trying for a week, after which she adapted to it and confessed her earlier error.<ref name=WEIN104>{{harvnb|Weinstock|1971|p=104}}</ref> At the opening night, the opera was received with what [[Herbert Weinstock|Weinstock]] describes as "chill indifference".{{sfn|Weinstock|1971|p=105}} To his friend [[Francesco Florimo]], on the night of the premiere, Bellini wrote "Fiasco! Fiasco! Solemn fiasco!" and proceeded to tell him of the indifference of the audience and how it affected him.<ref>Bellini to Florimo, 26 December 1831, in {{harvnb|Weinstock|1971|p=105}}</ref>

In addition, in a letter to his uncle on 28 December, Bellini tried to explain the reasons for the reactions. As other commentators have also noted, some problems were innate to the structure and content of the opera, while others were external to it. Bellini discusses the tiredness of the singers (after rehearsing the entire second act on the day of the premiere) as well as noting how certain numbers failed to please—and failed to please the composer as well! But then he explains that most of the second act was very effective. It appears from the letter that the second evening's performance was more successful and Weinstock reports it was from this performance forward that it "was recognised as a successful and important opera" with 208 performances given at La Scala alone by the end of the 19th century.{{sfn|Weinstock|1971|p=268}}

Among the external reasons, Bellini cited the adverse reaction caused by "hostile factions in the audience"<ref name=KIMB>{{harvnb|Kimbell|2001|p=51}}</ref> consisting of both the owner of a journal (and his [[claque]]) and also of "a very rich woman", who is identified by Weinstock as Contessa [[Yuliya Samoylova (countess)|Giulia Samoyloff]], the mistress of the composer [[Giovanni Pacini]]. On Bellini's part, there had long been a feeling of rivalry with Pacini ever since the failure of his own ''[[Zaira (opera)|Zaira]]'' in Parma and his return to Milan in June 1829. With no firm contract for a new opera for Bellini, Pacini's success with his ''Il Talismano'' at La Scala—where it received 16 performances—fueled this rivalry, at least in Bellini's head. It was only when he staged a triumphant revival of his own with ''[[Il pirata]]'' with the original cast that he felt vindicated. ''Pirata'' received 24 consecutive performances between 16 July and 23 August 1829, thus outnumbering those for Pacini's opera.<ref name=WEIN79>{{harvnb|Weinstock|1971|pp=79–82}}</ref> 

However, Bellini also noted that on the second performance evening of ''Norma'', the theatre was full.<ref>Bellini to Vincenzo Ferlito, 28 December 1831, in {{harvnb|Weinstock|1971|p=106}}</ref>
In all, ''Norma'' was given 34 performances in its first season at La Scala, and reports from elsewhere, especially those from Bergamo, when it was staged in late 1832, suggested that it was becoming more and more popular. Between 1831 and 1850 Weinstock provides details of the dozens of performances given in numerous cities outside of Italy, and then he gives details of those beyond.{{sfn|Weinstock|1971|pp=270–275}}

Bellini left Milan for Naples, and then Sicily, on 5 January 1832 and, for the first time since 1827, 1832 became a year in which he did not write an opera.{{sfn|Weinstock|1971|pp=107–108}} ''Norma'' quickly "[conquered] the whole of Europe in the space of a few years".<ref name=KIMB />

=== Later revivals ===
[[Richard Wagner]] conducted ''Norma'' at [[Riga]] in [[1837]]. Following the common nineteenth-century practice of adding [[insertion aria|interpolated arias]], he wrote an aria for the bass and men's chorus for this production.{{sfn|Maguire|Forbes|1998|pp=617–619}} However, that aria has not entered the general repertoire. Wagner wrote at the time that ''Norma'' was "indisputably Bellini's most successful composition".<ref name=KIMB-WAG>Essay on the opera by Wagner, in {{harvnb|Kimbell|2001|p=51}}</ref> "In this opera, Bellini has undoubtedly risen to the greatest heights of his talent. In these days of romantic extravaganzas and the hyper-excitement of the so-called musical attractions he presents a phenomenon which can hardly be overrated. The action, free from all theatrical coups and dazzling effects, reminds one instinctively of a Greek tragedy. Perhaps the views expressed by Schiller in his 'Bride of Messina' to the effect that he had hopes for the full revival of the tragedy of the ancients upon our stage, in the form of the opera, will receive new justification in this ''Norma''! Let anyone name me a spiritual painting of its kind, more fully carried out, than that of this wild Gaelic prophetess...Every emotional moment stands out plastically; nothing has been vaguely swept together..."<ref>{{cite news |last= Friedlaender |first= Maryla |title= What Wagner Thought of Norma |work=[[Opera News]]|date= 7 February 1944 |page=5}}</ref>

Wagner also praised Romani's libretto:

<blockquote>Here, where the poem rises to the tragic height of the ancient Greeks, this kind of form, which Bellini has certainly ennobled, serves only to increase the solemn and imposing character of the whole; all the phases of passion, which are rendered in so peculiarly clear a light by his art of song, are thereby made to rest upon a majestic soil and ground, above which they do not vaguely flutter about, but resolve themselves into a grand and manifest picture, which involuntarily calls to mind the creations of [[Christoph Willibald Gluck|Gluck]] and [[Gaspare Spontini|Spontini]].<ref name=KIMB-WAG /><ref>{{cite news|last1=Friedlaender|first1=Maryla|title=''Norma'' Challenged Richard Wagner|work=[[Opera News]]|date=22 March 1954|page=32}}</ref></blockquote>

The opera was given its British premiere in London on 20 June 1833 and its US premiere at the St. Charles Theatre in New Orleans on 1 April 1836.{{sfn|Rutherford|2007|loc=p. 123, n. 77}} In the late 1840s and during the [[Risorgimento]] era, some of the music was used in demonstrations of nationalistic fervour, one such example being the 1848 celebration of the liberation of [[Sicily]] from the rule of the [[House of Bourbon|Bourbons]] held in the cathedral in [[Palermo]]. There, the "Guerra, guerra" (War, war!) chorus from act 2 was sung.<ref name=KIMB /> ''Norma'' received its first performance at the [[Metropolitan Opera]] in New York on 27 February 1890 with [[Lilli Lehmann]] singing the title role in German.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://archives.metopera.org/MetOperaSearch/record.jsp?dockey=0358039 | title=Metropolitan Opera Archives }}</ref>

=== Modern times ===
The Metropolitan Opera revived ''Norma'' in 1927 (the first performance of the opera there since 1892) with [[ Rosa Ponselle]] in the title role.

During the later 20th century, with the bel canto revival, the most prolific Norma was the Greek-American soprano [[Maria Callas]], who gave 89 stage performances (several of which exist on live recordings as well as two on studio versions made in 1954 and 1960). Callas's first appearances in the role began at the [[Teatro Comunale di Firenze]] in November/December 1948 followed by the second at the [[Teatro Colón]], Buenos Aires in June 1949, both of which were conducted by [[Tullio Serafin]]. The following year, she appeared in the role at [[La Fenice]] in Venice in January 1950, this time under [[Antonino Votto]],{{sfn|Bret|1997|pp=324–336}} and in Mexico in May 1950 conducted by Guido Picco. In London in 1952, Callas sang Norma at the [[Royal Opera House]], Covent Garden in November (where the role of Clotilde was sung by [[Joan Sutherland]]); she made her American debut singing the role at the [[Lyric Opera of Chicago]] in November 1954 under [[Nicola Rescigno]]; and then she appeared at the [[Metropolitan Opera]] in New York under [[Fausto Cleva]] in October/November 1956.{{sfn|Maguire|Forbes|1998|p=617}} In 1960, she performed Norma in the [[Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus]] in [[Greece]] with the collaboration of the [[Greek National Opera]], in the production of [[Alexis Minotis]].