Anna Netrebko as Lucia di Lammermoor **
The Italian term bel canto, which translates to “beautiful singing,” generally refers to a specific style and period in opera history. Following the maturation of the operatic form during the Baroque era, Italian composers at the start of the 1800s began to write differently for the voice—notably longer and more fluid lines—and consequently expected singers to adopt techniques that would better fit the orchestration they were crafting. This included abandoning any excessive vibrato and singing higher notes with a lighter tone. The bel canto era saw the “heroic tenor” replace the castrato in the role of the virile young male. Another development involved gradually doing away with keyboard-accompanied recitative in favor of full orchestration throughout the opera, thereby blurring the lines somewhat between showy arias and ensemble pieces (duets, trios, etc.) and the connecting bits that helped flesh out the story line. The three major bel canto composers were Gioachino Rossini [1792–1868], Gaetano Donizetti [1797–1848], and Vincenzo Bellini [1801–1835].
Rossini wrote 39 operas and enjoyed more acclaim during his lifetime than any other opera composer of the era. His two best-known operas are The Barber of Seville and Cinderella. Oftentimes Rossini composed an overture to one opera, only to reuse it for another later on. While most of his material was composed initially for Italian audiences, Rossini moved to Paris—the center of the opera world in the early nineteenth century—in 1824 and wrote his final three operas there. His five-act grand opera William Tell—rarely heard these days except for its iconic overture—marked the end of his musical career at age 38. He spent the remaining years of his life enjoying the tremendous wealth his operas had earned him.
Donizetti was an amazingly prolific composer, writing somewhere around 70 operas during his lifetime. The number is open to interpretation primarily because some of his compositions were revised and then performed under different titles—and occasionally with different story lines as well, depending upon the whims of the censors in whichever city or kingdom he was preparing the production. His most popular opera by far is Lucia di Lammermoor, and he composed a number of operas on historical characters that continue to remain popular with audiences worldwide. These include Anna Bolena, Lucrezia Borgia, and Maria Stuarda.
Bellini was a Sicilian whose life was cut short by an intestinal illness, but many music scholars consider the ten operas he composed to be the quintessential representation of the bel canto style. His most famous works are Norma and La sonnambula, and he also composed one of the two major Romeo & Juliet operas in the repertoire (Gounod wrote the other); his was titled The Capulets and the Montagues.
** Photo courtesy Metropolitan Opera / Ken Howard
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