Bellini is poor, it is true, in his instrumentation and harmony! … But rich in feeling and in an entirely individual, personal melancholy! Even in his lesser-known operas, in Straniera and Il Pirata, there are long, long, long melodies, such as no one has written before him. And what truth and power of declamation, as for instance in the duet between Pollione and Norma! And how his thinking takes off in the first phrase of Norma’s [orchestral] Introduzione, followed after a few bars by another phrase. […] Poorly orchestrated, but no one has ever thought of anything that sounds more beautiful, more heavenly!
(Giuseppe Verdi in a letter dated the 2nd of May, 1898, to Camille Bellaigue.)
The world premiere of Norma, the serious opera composed by the 30-year-old Vincenzo Bellini in 1831 for the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, was, in the composer’s own words, a “fiasco, fiasco, solenne fiasco.” According to Bellini, this was due to the enmity of, among others, a countess, who was the mistress of the composer Giovanni Pacini, whose opera Il corsaro was planned after Norma. We know from eyewitness reports that Bellini exaggerated: the premiere was not a great success, but certainly not a fiasco. Bellini’s contemporaries soon understood that Norma was an exceptional work even within Bellini’s highly accomplished and relatively small oeuvre. Norma is therefore—together with Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor—the only serious bel canto opera that has always held repertoire in the 19th and 20th centuries, albeit often in drastically shortened versions.
The continued popularity of Norma is not surprising, as the title role is a huge challenge for any great soprano. Bellini himself described the role as ‘encyclopaedic,’ by which he meant that the range of emotions Norma experiences and the technical demands placed on her part can only be mastered by the very best of singers. After all, she must be equally convincing in the famously subdued prayer to the chaste moon goddess (‘Casta Diva’), as in the fierce jealousy with which Norma treats her Roman clandestine lover Pollione, and in the unexpected empathy she displays for her hapless rival Adalgisa. The role of Norma was therefore tailor-made for Giuditta Pasta, the greatest soprano of the time. During a revival of Norma in Bergamo in 1832, she was so convincing that the composer himself wrote that he “wept because of all those many emotions I felt in my soul.”
Alas, Bellini himself was never completely satisfied with his Norma, no matter how much care he took with the score. Just before his early death in 1835 at the age of 33, he still wanted to make a major revision of the score and also change the instrumentation in some places. It would no longer come to pass; the intestinal disease from which Bellini had suffered since 1830 proved fatal to him in 1835. Rossini, who had fostered an almost paternal affection for his young Sicilian colleague, was so out of sorts after the funeral that, in his own words, he had to keep to his bed, “half-dead.”
Precisely because Norma has always held repertoire, a performance tradition has developed that sometimes obstructs the view of Bellini’s original intentions. Bellini’s own manuscript already contains numerous corrections and ‘second thoughts’ by the composer himself, which may have been made during rehearsals in Milan or for later performances. It was also standard practice for the singers not to sing literally what the composer had notated, but to add numerous improvised embellishments. No doubt Pasta passed on her ornamentation skills to her pupils, so certain variations took on a life of their own. Bellini’s original tempi—the indications of the tempo at which the music should be played and sung—also became more and more out of focus as the years went by.
From 1949, the renowned Greek-American soprano Maria Callas increasingly devoted herself to the then often rather neglected bel canto repertoire. She usually worked in this repertoire with Italian conductor Tullio Serafin, whom she described as “her friend in the orchestra pit” after his death. In early 1950, it was Norma’s turn in Venice, soon followed by the same role in Buenos Aires. For her debut in London on the 8th of November 1952, in Chicago on the 1st of November 1954, and in New York on the 29th of October 1956, Callas chose Bellini’s Norma each time. By her own admission, Norma was her favourite role, along with the role of Violetta in Verdi’s La traviata. Fortunately, several recordings (studio recordings EMI 1954 and 1960, live recording Angel 1972) have survived, which make it perfectly understandable that the renowned English critic Andrew Porter described her as “the Norma of our time;” some not entirely pure and somewhat shrill top notes do not detract from this.
All that said, it is worth remembering that Callas knew the score only in a shortened version by Serafin and that she was used to conventions that sometimes deviated from Bellini’s intentions, such as the traditional choice of a mezzo-soprano or even an alto for the role of Adalgisa, while Bellini had written the part for the soprano Giulia Grisi. Comparing the music for Adalgisa with that for Norma, it appears that Grisi possessed a lighter and less dramatic soprano voice than Pasta, who, according to some experts today, would be called a mezzo-soprano rather than a soprano. Hence, in her recording of Norma, the mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli is seconded by the lyric soprano Sumi Jo as Adalgisa. Although opinions about Bartoli’s interpretation vary widely—some critics consider it a revelation, others a soulless entity—her performance at least sheds an entirely new light on this opera, partly due to the fact that her accompanying orchestra, the Orchestra La Scintilla, plays on historical instruments from Bellini’s time. As a result, the orchestra sounds more transparent, energetic, and colourful than we are used to.
Bellini’s writing for orchestra was sometimes disparaged during and after Bellini’s lifetime. As noted, the composer himself apparently also considered revising the orchestration. Granted, Bellini’s orchestration is simple and functional compared to that of many of his contemporaries. But it was a conscious decision by Bellini to focus the spotlight as much as possible on melody and singing, and to give the orchestra primarily a supporting function. The French composer Georges Bizet, who had been asked to take on the task of re-orchestrating Norma, soon concluded that any attempt to do so was doomed to failure.
Compared to most of his Italian contemporaries, Bellini often took considerable care with his operas, even though he too did not escape having to compose under high pressure and often with little time available to him. His ten opera titles are almost all masterpieces, but Norma takes the crown, even according to Bellini himself. Even Richard Wagner, who was typically critical of Italian opera, called it “a masterpiece […] that speaks directly to the heart” and, like Verdi—bien etonnés de se trouver ensemble—was full of praise for Bellini’s long melodic lines.
Recommended recordings
Maria Callas has sung the incredibly taxing role of Norma at least 90 times. According to experts, the 60th performance on the 7th of December 1955 at La Scala was one of her very best interpretations of the role. The live recording of this performance was released on Divina Records and indeed shows Callas at the height of her career. Technically, the 1954 and 1960 studio recordings (both on EMI) obviously sound better, but this unfortunately not quite complete live recording—the overture, the first scene and the beginning of the second scene are missing—is musically preferable. To overcome this shortcoming, Divina Records has used about 15 minutes of material from two other recordings. The performance with Cecilia Bartoli appeared on Decca in 2013.
