Vincenzo Bellini, I puritani (1835)

Bellini is the third big Bel Canto name, along with Donizetti and Rossini. I'd never seen anything of his before, so I decided to start here with his last (and therefore best?) opera before his early death at the age of thirty-three.

When Americans think about Puritans, we mainly think about witch trials, Hester Prynne, and funny hats. Maybe if we expand that to include "Pilgrims," a few more things, but we don't usually learn about British history in school, so I don't think most of us are really clear about what they were doing before some of them came to the Americas. I'm certainly not, so a little bit of wikipedia-ing was necessary to understand the context here.

So it's the English Civil War and the Puritans are on the verge of victory against the Royalists. The heroine is Elvira. Her hand was promised to Riccardo, one of the Puritan higher-ups, but she's in love with this Arturo guy, so she's sad. But she's able to marry Arturo instead, thanks to the intercession of her uncle Giorgio. So she's happy! And so is he! But there's a mysterious woman there who turns out to be the widow of the recently-executed Charles I; Arturo learns who she is and agrees to help her escape so she won't share his fate. Elvira is extremely sad about this and therefore goes insane, as one does. Arturo is now a fugitive, and it transpires that there's a death sentence on his head for having helped the Queen escape. Giorgio prevails upon Riccardo's better nature to plead on his behalf, but they both agree that if he's actually fighting with the Royalists, they will fuck his shit up. He appears, and Elvira sees him and stops being insane, although you do have to wonder about the overall mental state of someone who can flip between sane and crazy so quickly and easily. Everyone calls for Arturo to be executed for having helped the Royalists, but then word comes that they've won and Oliver Cromwell is pardoning everyone, so HURRAH. I suspect that the idea that Cromwell was this super-swell guy would be subject to a certain amount of, hmm, disagreement. But really, I don't think there's any interest in ideology here; the milieu was just a convenient backdrop for Bellini to use. Anyway, that's your opera.

I must say, I found the question of what Arturo's deal is very confusing. Is he a genuine Royalist sympathizer, or does he just save the Queen out of general compassion? He refers to her as "My Queen" when he learns her identity, suggesting the former, but later he justifies himself by saying that if he hadn't helped her, she'd've had a terrible death, suggesting more the latter. Also, everyone wants him to be executed, but then the pardon comes and now everyone's happy hurrah? What exactly is their attitude going to be towards him going forward? It's all very perplexing.

Well, questionable plot aside, I liked this. I mean, liked. Not loved; it didn't blow me away as much as I had hoped. Elvira's much-feted mad scene is good, but I couldn't help thinking that there really wasn't enough impetus for her to have gone mad. The title character in Lucia di Lammermoorhad a much better excuse. This production is fine, although it sort of bends a little under the weight of its extremely traditional production. Everybody talks about Anna Netrebko as Elvira of course, and she's good, there's no doubt, although actually, my favorite performance was John Relyea as the compassionate Giorgio. My favorite part of the opera was the patriotic duet between him and Franco Vassallo (a duet between a bass and a baritone--interesting) at the end of Act II.

I mean, really, it was fine. I must see more of Bellini to get a better idea of what he's about.