Norma () is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after the play Norma, ou L'infanticide (Norma, or The Infanticide) by Alexandre Soumet. It was first produced at La Scala in Milan on 26 December 1831.
The opera is regarded as a leading example of the bel canto genre, and the soprano prayer "Casta diva" in Act 1 is a famous piece. Among the well known singers of Norma of the first half of the 20th century was Rosa Ponselle who played the role in New York and London. Notable exponents of the title role in the post-war period have been Maria Callas, Leyla Gencer, Joan Sutherland, and Montserrat Caballé.
Composition history
Crivelli and Company were managing both La Scala and La Fenice in Venice, and as a result, in April–May 1830 Bellini was able to negotiate a contract with them for two operas, one at each theatre. The opera for December 1831 at La Scala became Norma, while the one for the 1832 Carnival season at La Fenice became Beatrice di Tenda.
With Bellini's La sonnambula successfully staged in March 1831 and Giuditta Pasta having demonstrated her extensive vocal and dramatic ranges in creating the role of Amina, the Swiss village maiden, she had been engaged by La Scala for her debut during the following season. Bellini and Romani then began to consider the subject of the coming autumn's opera. By the summer, they had decided to base it on Alexandre Soumet's play which was being performed in Paris at around that time and which Pasta would have seen.
For the forthcoming autumn/winter season, La Scala had engaged Giulia Grisi (the sister of Giuditta Grisi) and the well-known tenor Domenico Donzelli, who had made a name for himself with Rossini roles, especially that of Otello. They would fill the roles of Adalgisa and Pollione. Donzelli provided Bellini with precise details of his vocal capabilities which were confirmed by a report which the Neapolitan composer Saverio Mercadante also provided. By the end of August it appears that Romani had completed a considerable amount of the libretto, enough at least to allow Bellini to begin work, which he certainly did in the first weeks of September as the verses were supplied. He reported in a letter to Pasta on 1 September:
I hope that you will find this subject to your liking. Romani believes it to be very effective, and precisely because of the all-inclusive character for you, which is that of Norma. He will manipulate the situations so that they will not resemble other subjects at all, and he will retouch, even change, the characters to produce more effect, if need be.Bellini to Pasta, 1 September 1831, in
Norma was completed by about the end of November. While, for Romani, it became "the most beautiful rose in the garland" of all his work with Bellini,Romani, in it was not achieved without some struggles. Bellini, now at the height of his powers, was very demanding of his librettist and required many re-writes before he was satisfied enough to set it to music.
Performance history
Premiere performances After rehearsals began on 5 December 1831, Pasta balked at singing the "Casta diva" in act 1, now one of the most famous arias of the nineteenth century. She felt that it was "ill adapted to her vocal abilities",Sherillo, in but Bellini was able to persuade her to keep trying for a week, after which she adapted to it and confessed her earlier error. On opening night, the opera was received with what Weinstock describes as "chill indifference". To his friend Francesco Florimo, on the night of the premiere, Bellini wrote "Fiasco! Fiasco! Solemn fiasco!" and proceeded to tell him of the indifference of the audience and how it affected him.Bellini to Florimo, 26 December 1831, in
In a letter to his uncle on 28 December, Bellini tried to explain the reasons for the reactions. As other commentators have noted, some problems were innate to the structure and content of the opera, while others were external to it. Bellini notes that the singers were tired after rehearsing the entire second act on the day of the premiere, and that certain numbers failed to please the audience or himself. He goes on to say that most of the second act was very effective. It appears from the letter that the second evening's performance was more successful and Weinstock reports it was from this performance forward that it "was recognised as a successful and important opera" with 208 performances given at La Scala alone by the end of the 19th century.
Among the external reasons, Bellini cited the adverse reaction caused by "hostile factions in the audience" consisting of both the owner of a journal (and his claque) and also of "a very rich woman", who is identified by Weinstock as Contessa Giulia Samoyloff, the mistress of the composer Giovanni Pacini. Bellini had long felt a rivalry with Pacini, since the failure of his own Zaira in Parma and his return to Milan in June 1829. With no firm contract for a new opera for Bellini, Pacini's success with his Il Talismano at La Scala—where it received 16 performances—fueled this rivalry for Bellini. It was only when he staged a triumphant revival of his own with Il pirata with the original cast that he felt vindicated. Pirata received 24 consecutive performances between 16 July and 23 August 1829, more than Pacini's Il Talismano.
Bellini also noted that the theatre was full for the second performance of Norma.Bellini to Vincenzo Ferlito, 28 December 1831, in In all, Norma was given 34 performances in its first season at La Scala, and reports from elsewhere, especially those from Bergamo, when it was staged in late 1832, suggested that it was becoming more and more popular. Between 1831 and 1850 Weinstock provides details of the dozens of performances given in numerous cities outside of Italy, and then he gives details of those beyond.
Bellini left Milan for Naples, and then Sicily, on 5 January 1832 and, for the first time since 1827, 1832 became a year in which he did not write an opera. Norma quickly "[conquered] the whole of Europe in the space of a few years".
Later revivals Richard Wagner conducted Norma at Riga in 1837. Following the common nineteenth-century practice of adding interpolated arias, he wrote an aria for the bass and men's chorus for this production. However, that aria has not entered the general repertoire. Wagner wrote at the time that Norma was "indisputably Bellini's most successful composition".Essay on the opera by Wagner, in "In this opera, Bellini has undoubtedly risen to the greatest heights of his talent. In these days of romantic extravaganzas and the hyper-excitement of the so-called musical attractions he presents a phenomenon which can hardly be overrated. The action, free from all theatrical coups and dazzling effects, reminds one instinctively of a Greek tragedy. Perhaps the views expressed by Schiller in his 'Bride of Messina' to the effect that he had hopes for the full revival of the tragedy of the ancients upon our stage, in the form of the opera, will receive new justification in this Norma! Let anyone name me a spiritual painting of its kind, more fully carried out, than that of this wild Gaelic prophetess...Every emotional moment stands out plastically; nothing has been vaguely swept together..."
Wagner also praised Romani's libretto:
Here, where the poem rises to the tragic height of the ancient Greeks, this kind of form, which Bellini has certainly ennobled, serves only to increase the solemn and imposing character of the whole; all the phases of passion, which are rendered in so peculiarly clear a light by his art of song, are thereby made to rest upon a majestic soil and ground, above which they do not vaguely flutter about, but resolve themselves into a grand and manifest picture, which involuntarily calls to mind the creations of Gluck and Spontini.
The opera was given its British premiere in London on 20 June 1833 and its US premiere at the St. Charles Theatre in New Orleans on 1 April 1836. In the late 1840s and during the Risorgimento era, some of the music was used in demonstrations of nationalistic fervour, one such example being the 1848 celebration of the liberation of Sicily from the rule of the Bourbons held in the cathedral in Palermo. There, the "Guerra, guerra" (War, war!) chorus from act 2 was sung. Norma received its first performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 27 February 1890 with Lilli Lehmann singing the title role in German.
Modern times The Metropolitan Opera revived Norma in 1927 (the first performance of the opera there since 1892) with Rosa Ponselle in the title role.
During the later 20th century, with the bel canto revival, the most prolific Norma was the Greek-American soprano Maria Callas, who gave 89 stage performances (several of which exist on live recordings as well as two on studio versions made in 1954 and 1960). Callas's first appearances in the role began at the Teatro Comunale di Firenze in November/December 1948 followed by the second at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires in June 1949, both of which were conducted by Tullio Serafin. The following year, she appeared in the role at La Fenice in Venice in January 1950, this time under Antonino Votto, and in Mexico in May 1950 conducted by Guido Picco. In London in 1952, Callas sang Norma at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in November (where the role of Clotilde was sung by Joan Sutherland); she made her American debut singing the role at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in November 1954 under Nicola Rescigno; and then she appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New York under Fausto Cleva in October/November 1956. In 1960, she performed Norma in the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus in Greece with the collaboration of the Greek National Opera, in the production of Alexis Minotis. After singing only a few concerts for a few years, she returned to Norma in Paris in 1965. She was unable to complete her final performance in the role on 25 May. She sang one more performance (of Tosca) a week later in London, her final appearance in a staged opera.
Singers in the title role
The title role—"one of the most taxing and wide-ranging parts in the entire repertory"—is one of the most difficult in the soprano repertoire. It calls for great vocal control of range, flexibility, and dynamics as well as containing a wide range of emotions: conflict of personal and public life, romantic life, maternal love, friendship, jealousy, murderous intent, and resignation. The German soprano Lilli Lehmann once remarked that the singing of all three Brünnhilde roles of Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen in one evening would be less stressful than the singing of one Norma.Interview between Edward Downes and Maria Callas. La Divina Complete, CD 4. EMI Classics. She also commented "When you sing Wagner, you are so carried away by the dramatic emotion, the action, and the scene that you do not have to think how to sing the words. That comes of itself. But in Bellini, you must always have a care for beauty of tone and correct emission." According to the Met Opera Archives, Lehmann said this to Herald Tribune critic Henry Krehbiel.
Throughout the 20th century, many singers have tackled the role of Norma. In the early 1920s, it was Rosa Raisa, Claudia Muzio, and Rosa Ponselle who were each admired. Maria Callas emerged as a major force in the role in the post-World War II period. She made two studio recordings of the opera for EMI/HMV, and several broadcasts of her live performances have been preserved from the early 1950s through her final performances of the role in Paris in May 1965.
In the 1960s, two very different performers sang the role: the Australian Dame Joan Sutherland and the Turkish Leyla Gencer. Following Sutherland's 1963 debut as Norma, Luciano Pavarotti called her "the greatest female voice of all time."