Fresh, graceful,
and occasionally tender, it forms the happiest contrast to the grandiose
nonsense which the composer was in the habit of turning out to suit the
vitiated taste of the day, and is a convincing proof that if he had been
permitted to exercise his talent in a congenial sphere, Donizetti would
be entitled to rank with the most successful followers of Cimarosa and
Paisiello, instead of being degraded to the rank of a mere purveyor to
the manufacturers of barrel-organs.
Different as was the talent of Bellini (1802-1835) from that of
Donizetti, his fate has been the same. After holding the ear of Europe
for many years, he has fallen at the present time completely into the
background, and outside the frontiers of Italy his works are rarely
heard. Bellini had no pretensions to dramatic power. His genius was
purely elegiac in tone, and he relied entirely for the effect which he
intended to produce upon the luscious beauty of his melodies, into
which, it must be admitted, the great singers of his time contrived to
infuse a surprising amount of dramatic force.
The story of 'La Sonnambula' is rather foolish, but it suited Bellini's
idyllic style, and the work is perhaps the happiest example of his
_naif_ charm. Amina, a rustic damsel, betrothed to Elvino, is a
confirmed somnambulist, and her nocturnal peregrinations have given the
village in which she dwells the reputation of being haunted by a
spectre.
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