I Puritani

This is the last opera by Bellini. He died prematurely at age 34 when his success with Parisian society was enormous. In a musical landscape dominated by Italians from Rossini to Donizetti- who was his great rival - finally Bellini received the commission for an opera which premiered at the Théâtre des Italiens in 1834. The Sicilian composer chose the historical backdrop of the English civil war between Cromwell and the Roundheads and the Cavaliers to write an intense love story punctuated by passion, betrayal and madness. The opera focuses Elvira. She is a classic romantic heroine who believes herself incomprehensibly betrayed on her wedding day by her fiancé. Such pain and unbearable suffering causes Elvira to have a mental collapse. Madness was a characteristic feature in Romanticism: physical frailty and social isolation of characters was a way to emphasize the expression of irrepressibly powerful emotions. In this stylised staging by Emilio Sagi, these souls are overcome with melancholy.