La Sonnambula

by VINCENZO BELLINI
Opera Orchestra of New York
Eve Queler, conductor

Performers listed below.

Vincenzo Bellini was only 33 years old when he died in 1835, yet he had already become an operatic superstar. But if his operas are any indication, he wasn’t exactly a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, despite his youth. The operas that made him famous were decidedly serious stuff. They all seemed to bank on betrayal, heartbreak, backstabbing, both literal and figurative, and graphic death: throat-slitting, poison, immolation - you name it. Bellini’s first big hit was “The Pirate,” features tragic love, blackmail, and murder. His next one was “The Stranger,” where we see a despondent lover stab himself to death -- in the middle of his own wedding! Then there’s “Norma,” Bellini’s most famous opera, in which the title character is burned alive for loving the wrong man. And Bellini’s final opera is called “I Puritani,” a piece about the Puritans of early America -- an intrepid bunch, to be sure, but hardly a barrel of laughs.

So, when you start reading the story of Bellini’s “La Sonnambula,” and see that a young woman, about to married, is caught in the wrong man’s bed, you might assume she’s sure to suffer some horrible fate at the hands of her fiance. But you’d be wrong. See, when Bellini wrote this one, he was trying to get around some picky censors - a sort of Italian “ratings council” - who had just nixed his latest project. He’d been working on a setting of “Ernani,” based on Victor Hugo’s bloody story of death and betrayal. So, when that one got canned just a couple of months before opening night, Bellini turned to a story so innocent that even its bad behavior is easily explained, and more easily excused. The young lady’s reason for bedding down in the wrong man’s room? She’d been sleepwalking of course - could happen to anybody!

Is this opera as silly and simpleminded as it sounds? Well, maybe. But the innocence of its sentiment is the perfect complement to the inspired purity of Bellini’s melodic style - all of which you’ll hear right from the start when you tune it in this week on NPR WORLD OF OPERA, with Steve Curwood. The performance, from Carnegie Hall, is by Opera Orchestra of New York, with conductor Eve Queler, and a splendid performance by Ruth Ann Swenson in the title role.

For more on the mysteries of sonnambulism, join Lou Santacroce for NPR’s AT THE OPERA, 30 minutes before curtain time.

Performers:
Ruth Ann Swenson, soprano (Amina); Gregory Kunde, tenor (Elvino); John Retyea, bass (Count Rodolfo); Carla Wood, mezzo-soprano (Teresa); Lynette Tapia, soprano (Lisa); Patrick Carfizzi, bass (Alessio)


Links: