BELLINI - I Capuleti e i Montecchi_音乐专辑
BELLINI - I Capuleti e i Montecchi
表演者: Agnes Baltsa/Edita Gruberova/Riccardo Muti
唱片数: 2cds
出版者: EMI Classics
条形码: 5099950914425
专辑简介
The traveller on the motorway between Milan and Venice will see, as he approaches Vicenza, two castles high up on his left. Overlooking the town of Montecchio Maggiore, they belonged to the family that Shakespeare called the Montagues: nobles who owed their loyalty to the ruling Scaligeri, or della Scala, of Verona. So the Montecchi did exist, as did the Capuleti: but the story of Romeo and Juliet seems to have been invented by Luigi da Porto, whose Istoria Novellamente Ritrovata di due Nobili Amanti was published in 1535, and it is from him and his Italian successors, rather than from Shakespeare, that I Capuleti e I Montecchi is derived.
Bellini, born into a Sicilian family of musicians in 1801, had several successes and one failure behind him when he was commissioned by La Fenice, the principal opera house in Venice, to write an opera for the 1831 Carnival season. Bellini accepted the challenge, but with the premiere only two months away he had to move quickly.
The first performance of I Capuleti e i Montecchi, which took place on 3 March 1830, was a success. In later productions, Romeo was sung by Giuditta Pasta and Maria Malibran, sopranos both: Composers no longer wrote for castratos, but it was still acceptable to cast women as heroes and male lovers.
