BELLINI: I PURITANI

BELLINI'S PURITANS 

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 26th of March 2017 at 6 -10 pm 
Sunday 4th of February 2007 at 3 pm
Sunday 23rd of December 2007 at 3 pm
Sunday 1st of June 2014 at 6.03 - 9.40 pm

BELLINI: I Puritani,  an opera in three acts about lovers caught on opposing sides of the English Civil War - the Roundheads and the Cavaliers
The English civil war in the 1640s has divided the land between the supporters of Parliament under Oliver Cromwell (the Roundheads) and the Royalists faithful to the Stuart monarchy (the Cavaliers). King Charles I has been beheaded.
2017
BELLINI: I Puritani,
Elvira........................... Diana Damrau
Lord Arturo Talbot...... Javier Camarena
Riccardo...................... Alexey Markov
Giorgio......................... Luca Pisaroni
Bruno........................... Eduardo Valdes
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Maurizio Benini
2014 
Lord Arturo Talbot.......... Lawrence Brownlee
Elvira Walton................... Olga Peretyatko
Sir Riccardo Forth........... Mariusz Kwiecien
Sir Giorgio Walton.......... Michele Pertusi
Lord Gualtiero Walton.... David Crawford
Sir Bruno Robertson........ Eduardo Valdes
Enrichetta di Francia....... Elizabeth Bishop
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Michele Mariotti

Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) was another short-lived composer of operas (like Mozart and Bizet), and I Puritani (The Puritans) dates from the last year of his life. He gave us captivating music, with delightful orchestration and "beautiful singing" (bel canto, as opposed to can belto).
   This opera is about Plymouth Puritans, not to be confused with Plymouth Brethren.  It has a "mad scene" for soprano. For those who are mad-keen on the mad-scene concept, there is a treat or more in store here. Maybe this started with Shakespeare's Ophelia (and the sleepwalking of La Sonnambula and also Lady Macbeth), whereby a poor girl is "sick of love" and sings about her sorrows in a deranged but melodic manner.
   This is a Bellini opera we associate with Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland, as also his Norma and his Sonnambula (Sleepwalker); more recently (2006) Anna Netrebko has taken the part, and now (2014) Olga Peretyako (another Russian soprano) has shone in the role. My box-set of 12 square inches has Montserrat Caballé and Alfredo Kraus under Riccardo Muti. But I have Anna Netrebko on video-disc.

INTRODUCTION
LIBRETTO (Italian and English)
VIDEO (complete opera, Florez) 
SAMPLE (Netrebko)
SAMPLE (Callas) 
REVIEW (2014 NYT)
REVIEW (2014 Huffpost)

Sunday 23rd of December 2007 at 3 pm

I set up this opera information operating theater a year ago, I find. And this is the second time this Puritanical opera has been presented to us by Radio New Zealand Concert network in 2007.
Bellini's Puritans

[But I have prepared a new piece on it, because the Metropera website has new articles for our instruction. We see numerous pictures of Anna Netrebko along the way.  
Sorry, we do not have access to this splendid stuff now]

BELLINI: I Puritani, an opera in three acts
Gualtiero....................... Gian Carlo Luccardi
Elvira............................ Joan Sutherland
Giorgio.......................... Nicolai Ghiaurov
Arturo........................... Luciano Pavarotti
Riccardo....................... Piero Cappuccilli
Bruno............................ Renato Cazzaniga
Enrichetta...................... Anita Caminada
Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden,
London SO/Richard Bonynge (Decca 417 588)
As we can see, the afternoon is devoted to Luciano Pavarotti, who was lost to us in 2007; also his mentors, Richard and Joan.

But Wagner (who admired Bellini's operas) will provide the "overture". And we hear Kirsten Flagstad's speaking voice. Is this when she says that her warm-up in the dressing-room is Brünnhilde's solemn announcement to Siegmund that she is taking him to Valhalla? (He says he won't go unless his sister-lover Sieglinde can come too, but she can't, and then Brünnhilde says he can stay alive after all, but Wotan kills Siegmund and Hunding, and we don't know whether either of them went to live in Valhalla, though Hunding must have at least gone there and knocked on the door, with a singing telegram message from Wotan to his consort Fricka, reporting that Siegmund had been punished and executed for incest with Sieglinde.)

1:05 Vintage Years

WAGNER
Lohengrin, Prelude to Act 1 - BBC SO/Thomas Beecham (rec 1953); The soprano Kirsten Flagstad talks about singing Wagner (rec 1949) (Somm SOMM-BEECHAM 20)
Prelude & Liebestod, from Tristan & Isolde - Prague Radio SO/Václav Talich (rec 1953) (Supraphon SU 3828)
Wie sie selig, hehr und milde, from Tristan & Isolde - Wolfgang Windgassen (ten), Munich Phil/Leopold Ludwig (rec 1953) (DG 477 6543)
The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, Prelude to Act 3 - London SO/Leopold Stokowski (rec 1967) (BBC Legends BBCL 4088)