Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) - Lithographie von Giovanni Battista Gatti und Gaetano Dura, Neapel, 1835

Vincenzo Bellini is considered to be the most important Italien composer of the 19th century. After having studied with Giacomo Tritto and Nicola Antonio Zingarelli and others, he had his first great success with his opera "Bianca a Fernando" (1826). This success enabled the young composer to perform at the Milan Scala. Bellini had lived in Paris since 1833. His operas, together with those of Gioachino Rossini and Gaetano Donizetti, had been performed at the Paris Opera for more than two decades. While Rossini's musical language was mainly based on the ideal of beautiful sound, Bellini enriched the opera with novel and subjective forms of expression. Above all, he successfully demonstrated passionate and contradictory moods. Apart from that, the direct relation between music and text was very important to him. "Norma" (1831) is the most well-known opera Bellini had ever composed, and until today, it is played in international operas.(S.B.)