Vincenzo Bellini – opera composer

Short but successful career of Sicilian musical genius

A portrait of Vincenzo Bellini

The talented composer of the celebrated opera, Norma, was born Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini on this day in 1801 in Catania in Sicily.

Bellini became known for his long, flowing, melodic lines, which earned him the nickname, ‘The Swan of Catania’. He enjoyed great success during the bel canto era of Italian opera in the early part of the 19th century and many of his operas are still regularly performed today.

Born into a musical family, Bellini showed early talent. It was claimed he could sing an aria at 18 months and could play the piano by the age of five. Although some writers have said these are exaggerations, Bellini is known to have already begun composing music by his teens.

He was given financial support by the city of Catania to study music at a college in Naples and while he was there he was profoundly influenced by meeting the composer Gaetano Donizetti, having heard his opera, La zingara, performed at Teatro di San Carlo.

Bellini then wrote his first opera, Adelson e Salvini, which his fellow students performed to great acclaim.

In 1825, Bellini began work on what was to be his first professionally-produced opera, Bianca e Fernando. It was premiered at Teatro di San Carlo on 30 May, 1826 and was a big success. Donizetti attended the performance and wrote about it enthusiastically to his former tutor in Bergamo.

Teatro alla Scala in the 18th century

After Bellini was commissioned to compose an opera by Teatro alla Scala in Milan he moved to live in the city in 1827.

During the six years he spent in Milan he wrote four masterpieces, Il pirata, I Capuletti e I Montecchi, La sonnambula and Norma.

The tenor, Giovanni Battista Rubini, attracted rave reviews for his performance in Il pirata, having been urged by Bellini to act the part as well as sing it.

Norma was given 39 performances in its first season at La Scala and was equally popular when it was later performed in Bergamo.

When Bellini returned to Sicily in 1832, his opera, Il pirata, was a big success at the Teatro della Munzione in Messina and he was given a civic welcome when he arrived in Catania.

Excerpts from his operas were performed in a concert at the Teatro Massimo Bellini, which had been named by the city in his honour.

The Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania

Bellini’s visit to London in 1833 was a triumph, with La sonnambula and Norma attracting excellent reviews, and he was fêted by the fashionable set when he moved on to Paris.

However, when he began composing I puritani he moved out of Paris to live in nearby Puteaux in order to concentrate fully on the opera.

The opera was premiered at the Theatre-Italien in Paris on 24 January 1835 and was given an enthusiastic reception.

In the aftermath of the opera’s success, Bellini was named by King Louis-Philippe as Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur and he was awarded the cross of the Order of Francesco I by King Ferdinand II in Naples.

But Bellini was being increasingly troubled by gastric problems and became seriously ill later in the year. The composer died on 23 September 1835 at his home in Puteaux. He was just 33 years old.

Bellini was buried in a French cemetery as a short-term arrangement and his remains were taken to Catania and reburied in the Cathedral there in 1876.

Vincenzo Bellini's tomb in the Duomo
in Catania, his birthplace

Travel tip:

Catania, where Bellini was born, is an ancient city on Sicily’s east coast, situated at the foot of Mount Etna, an active volcano. There is a monument to Bellini in the Cathedral in Piazza del Duomo and a museum dedicated to his life, the Bellini Museum, which was opened in 1930 in Palazzo Gravina-Cruyllas, the house where he was born.

Travel tip:

Teatro San Carlo in Naples, where Bellini’s first professionally-produced opera was staged, is thought to be the oldest opera house in the world. It was officially opened in 1737, way ahead of La Scala in Milan and La Fenice in Venice. The theatre is in Via San Carlo close to Piazza Plebiscito, the main square in Naples. It was designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano for the Bourbon King of Naples, Charles I. In the magnificent auditorium the royal box is surmounted by the crown of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

More reading:

The genius of Gaetano Donizetti

Giovanni Battista Rubini - as famous in his day as Pavarotti

Teatro San Carlo - the world's oldest opera house

Also on this day:

The end of the First World War in Italy

(Photo of Bellini's tomb by G.dallorto)

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Eduardo De Filippo - Neapolitan dramatist

Playwright captured essence of city's spirit

A playwright and dramatist, Eduardo De
Filippo was also an accomplished actor

One of Italy’s greatest dramatists, Eduardo De Filippo, died on this day in 1984 in Rome at the age of 84.

An actor and film director as well as a playwright, De Filippo – often referred to simply as Eduardo – is most remembered as the author of a number of classic dramas set in his native Naples in the 1940s that continue to be performed today.

Arguably the most famous of these was Filomena marturano, upon which was based the hit movie Marriage, Italian Style, which starred Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni under the direction of Vittorio de Sica. 

De Filippo’s other memorable works included Napoli Milionaria, Le voci di dentro and Sabato, domenica e lunedi.

All of these plays showcased De Filippo’s ability to capture the essence of life in Naples in his time, particularly in the working class neighbourhoods that he felt were the beating heart of the city.

Rich in Neapolitan dialect, they were often bittersweet comedies of family life. They were social commentaries in which typical themes were the erosion of morals in times of desperation, the struggle of the downtrodden to retain their dignity and the preservation of family values even in the most poverty-stricken households.

Born out of wedlock, the son of a playwright, Eduardo Scarpetta, and the seamstress and costumier Luisa De Filippo, Eduardo was destined for a life in the theatre and appeared in one of his father’s plays at the age of five.

De Filippo often played opposite his sister, Titina

At 32 he formed his own stage company, the ‘Compagnie del Teatro Umoristico i de Filippo’, with his brother Peppino and sister Titina. The trio enjoyed success in films and on the stage in the 1930s but broke up soon after the Second World War.

But it was his plays that were his enduring legacy, for which many critics place him among the greatest of Italian dramatists, in the company of Carlo Goldoni and Luigi Pirandello.

Napoli milionaria (Naples Millionaire), written in 1945 is a realistic drama about a family's involvement in the Italian black market, set against the deprivations of war.He followed this with Questi fantasmi! (Neapoliitan Ghosts), a 1946 comedy in which a husband mistakes his wife's lover for a ghost.

In the same year came Filumena marturano, in which a former prostitute obtains financial stability for her three children by persuading her lover he is the father of one of them, without saying which.

De Filippo continued in 1948 with Le voci di dentro (Inner Voices), in which a man mistakes for reality a dream in which a friend is murdered by neighbours.

De Filippo (right) with the Italian president,
Sandro Pertini. De Filippo was made a life senator

His work became popular outside Italy.  In 1972, with his own production company, he took Naples Millionaire to London. The following year, the National Theatre in London produced Saturday, Sunday, Monday, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, with Joan Plowright and Frank Finlay. It won the London drama critics’ award as the best play of the year.

De Filippo, who had begun directing films in 1940, had some success as a director in the 1950s, his films largely light comedies.

In 1979, Laurence Olivier directed Frank Finlay and Joan Plowright in Filumena. Later, Sir Ralph Richardson had the final role of his career, playing Don Alberto, in the National Theatre's 1983 production of Inner Voices.

Filumena remains popular in Russia, where it is not forgotten that, in the 1960s in Moscow, the audience demanded and were granted 24 curtain calls after Eduardo's own company performed the work.

Napoli Milionaria, which opened at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in March,1945, featuring Eduardo himself, became a film in 1951, with him in the leading role. It was also adapted as an opera with music by the film composer, Nino Rota, and a libretto written by Eduardo himself. It opened in June 1977 at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto.

In 1981, De Filippo was appointed life senator of the Italian Republic. He died three years later.

The sumptuous interior of the Teatro San Carlo

Travel tip:

The Teatro San Carlo, Europe’s oldest theatre and opera house, suffered bomb damage during the war and its rebirth was a testament to the determination of Neapolitans not to allow their city’s heritage to be crushed. After one raid in 1943, the foyer that runs the whole length of the theatre suffered blast damage, many of the boxes were unusable, the dressing rooms were hit, the scenery and paint shop, the costume and wardrobe stores left beyond repair. Yet within a week the theatre was up and running again and staging musical productions. De Filippo’s play. Napoli Milionaria, which premiered there in 1945, was hailed for reflecting the city’s resourcefulness in the most testing of circumstances.

Travel tip:

Although Italian spoken by Neapolitans is often clear and easy to follow if you have some acquaintance with the language, dialect is widely used and many words differ from standard Italian. For a tomato, for example, Neapolitans say pummarola rather than pomodoro; for boy or girl they use the word guaglio/a rather than ragazzo/a; and for this and that (questo e quello) they say chisto and chillo.  In O Sole Mio, the famous Neapolitan song, the ‘O’ means ‘the’, as in ‘The sun of mine’ not ‘Oh sun of mine’.

More reading:

Roberto Benigni - Oscar winning director and star of Life is Beautiful

Arnold Foà - versatile actor still doing stage work in his 90s

Anna Magnani - earthy character actress who won over Rossellini

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Fire at Teatro di San Carlo

Royal theatre reopens quickly after blaze 

The damage wreaked by the 1816 fire, captured in a
painting by an unknown artist

Fire broke out during a dress rehearsal for a ballet at Teatro di San Carlo in Naples on this day in 1816.

The flames spread quickly, destroying a large part of the building in less than an hour.

The external walls were the only things left standing, but on the orders of Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, the prestigious theatre was rebuilt at once.

It was reconstructed following designs drawn up by architect Antonio Niccolini for a horseshoe-shaped auditorium with 1,444 seats. A stunning fresco was painted in the centre of the ceiling above the auditorium depicting a classical subject, Apollo presenting to Minerva the greatest poets of the world.

The rebuilding work took just ten months to complete and the theatre reopened to the public in January 1817.

Teatro di San Carlo had opened for the first time in 1737, way ahead of Teatro alla Scala in Milan and La Fenice in Venice.

Gioachino Rossini is among the former
artistic directors at San Carlo

Built in Via San Carlo close to Piazza Plebiscito, the main square in Naples, Teatro di San Carlo had quickly become one of the most important opera houses in Europe, known for its excellent productions.

The original theatre was designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano for the Bourbon King of Naples, Charles I, and took only eight months to build.

The official inauguration was on the King’s saint’s day, the festival of San Carlo, on the evening of November 4. There was a performance of Achille in Sciro by Pietro Metastasio with music by Domenico Sarro, who also conducted the orchestra for the music for two ballets.

This was 41 years before La Scala and 55 years before La Fenice opened. San Carlo is now believed to be one of the oldest remaining opera houses in the world, if not the oldest.

Both Gioachino Rossini and Gaetano Donizetti served as artistic directors at San Carlo and the world premieres of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Rossini’s Mosè were performed there.

During the Second World War the theatre was damaged by bombs but after the liberation of Naples in 1943 it was repaired and was able to reopen.

Between 2008 and 2009 a major refurbishment was carried out but the theatre reopened again to the public in 2010.

Inside Teatro di San Carlo, looking down
from above the royal box

Travel tip:

In the magnificent auditorium, the focal point is the royal box surmounted by the crown of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Opera enthusiasts can take a guided tour of the theatre and see the foyers, the auditorium, the boxes and the royal box. Tours run at 10.30, 11.30, 12.30, 14.30, 15.30 and 16.30 between Monday and Saturday and at 10.30, 11.30 and 12.30 on Sundays. Booking is recommended.

Naples accomodation by Booking.com

Travel Tip:

Close to Teatro di San Carlo in the centre of ‘royal’ Naples, there are many other sights, such as Galleria Umberto I, Caffè Gambrinus, the church of San Francesco di Paola and Palazzo Reale, that are all well worth visiting.


More reading:

The 1996 fire that destroyed La Fenice opera house in Venice

How Pietro Metastasio progressed from street entertainer to renowned librettist

Donizetti - the musical genius born in a darkened basement

Also on this day:

1539: The death of influential marchioness Isabella d’Este

1571: The death of painter Benvenuto Cellini

1912: The birth of poet Antonia Pozzi

1960: The birth of football referee Pierluigi Collina

(Painting: Rossini portrait by Vincenzo Camuccini, Museo del Teatro alla Scala in Milan) 

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First night at Teatro di San Carlo

Oldest opera house in the world opens its doors in Naples

Teatro di San Carlo in Naples was officially opened on this day in 1737, way ahead of Teatra alla Scala in Milan and Teatro La Fenice in Venice.

Teatro di San Carlo opened on 4 November 1737 with
a performance of Mestastasio's Achille in Sciro

Built in Via San Carlo, close to Piazza del Plebiscito, the main square in Naples, Teatro di San Carlo quickly became one of the most important opera houses in Europe and renowned for its excellent productions.

Originally known as the Real Teatro di San Carlo, the theatre was designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano for the Bourbon King of Naples, Charles I, and took just eight months to build.

Medrano was primarily a military architect, but he was advised by Angelo Carasale, the former director of the Teatro San Bartolomeo, which the San Carlo was to replace. 

Incorporating 184 boxes plus a 10-seater royal box, the theatre had a capacity of more than 3,000 people, although modern safety regulations limit today's theatre to 1,386 seats. 

The official inauguration was on the King’s saint’s day, the festival of San Carlo, on the evening of 4 November. There was a performance of Achille in Sciro by Pietro Metastasio with music by Domenico Sarro, who also conducted the orchestra for the music for two ballets.

This was 41 years before La Scala and 55 years before La Fenice opened. San Carlo is now believed to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest, remaining opera houses in the world.

Both Gioachino Rossini and Gaetano Donizetti served as artistic directors at San Carlo and the world premieres of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Rossini’s Mosè were performed there. 

Teatro di San Carlo is a short walk from the
Piazza del Plebiscito in the heart of Naples

In the magnificent auditorium, the focal point is the royal box surmounted by the crown of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. 

It is a lasting demonstration of the power of the Bourbon King Charles I in Naples at the time, which, thankfully, he used to give the city, and the rest of the world, a magnificent opera house.

Since then, San Carlo has suffered partial destruction in a fire in 1816 and was damaged by bombing raids in World War Two, although not too severely. It was open for business again within two months of Naples being liberated by the Allies in October 1943, relaunching on 26 December of that year with a performance of Puccini's La bohème.

Ironically, the great Neapolitan tenor, Enrico Caruso, did not enjoy a good relationship with San Carlo. From 1901 onwards, after being booed by a section of the audience during a performance of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, Caruso refused to sing there again.

The Caffè Gambrinus has a long and illustrious
history as a meeting place in the heart of Naples

Travel Tip:

Close to Teatro San Carlo in the centre of Naples, Galleria Umberto I, Caffè Gambrinus, the church of San Francesco di Paola and Palazzo Reale are all well worth visiting.  The Gambrinus is an historic coffee house situated next to the start of Via Chiaia.  It was was founded in 1860 by Vincenzo Apuzzo, whose dream was to make his cafe the most important of the newly unified Italy. The next owner, Mario Vacca, began a refurbishment programme and commissioned numerous contemporary artists to provide decoration. Their artwork still graces the elegant Art Nouveau interiors. Later, the Gambrinus became known as a meeting place for intellectuals and artists, among them Gabriele D'Annunzio and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway and Jean Paul Sartre.

President Sergio Matarella leads part of
the ceremony in Rome in 2018

Travel Tip:

National Unity and Armed Forces Day (Giorno dell’Unità Nazionale e Festa delle Forze Armate) is a day of celebration held in Italy on or close to 4 November each year. Originally conceived as a way to to commemorate the victory over Austria-Hungary in 1918, which to many marked the completion of Italian unification, it was somewhat hijacked as a celebration of military strength under Mussolini, who renamed it as the Anniversary of Victory. After World War Two, there was a reassertion of the sense that the celebration was about unity rather than a battlefield triumph. A national holiday until 1976, it became a moveable celebration after that and declined in importance for a while in the 1980s and '90s before being revived by former president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. You may still see parades and celebrations of the day, which was marked with particular ceremony on the centenary of the end of World War One in 2018, with events held in Trieste and Trento, two cities at the forefront of the victory in 1918, as well as in Rome.

More reading:

Pietro Metastasio - from street entertainer to leading librettist

Teatro di San Carlo partially destroyed by fire

Caruso still regarded by some as the greatest tenor of all time

Also on this day:

1448: The birth of Alfonso II of Naples

1575: The birth of painter Guido Reni

1964: The birth of novelist Sandrone Dazieri

1333 and 1966: Florence hit by catastrophic floods

(Picture credits: Teatro di San Carlo by Radomil Binek; Piazza del Plebiscito by Baku; Caffè Gambrinus by Armando Mancini; Sergio Matarella by Quirinale.it; via Wikimedia Commons)

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