Casta diva

by Petar PLAMENOV

3 July (Sunday), 20:00
8 July (Friday), 20:00
10 July (Sunday), 20:00
Norma
Opera by Vincenzo Bellini
Concert performance
Participants: Rumen Doykov, Dimitar Stanchev, Radostina Nikolaeva, Tsvetana Bandalovska, Ivanka Ninova, Plamen Papazikov
Conductor: GRIGOR PALIKAROV
Second Summer Festival in the Military Academy Park
Sofia National Opera and Balet
Military Academy Park
Address:
Sofia, Oborishte №1


The three principal composers of the bel canto period of Italian opera composition were Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini. While the very term bel canto (meaning “beautiful singing”) usually conjures up images of elaborate vocal pyrotechnics, Bellini’s version of the style preferred a simpler style of melody, bringing out the emotions of the characters more than simply putting on display the singers’ vocal agility. Nowhere is this on better display than in Norma, which features not only one of the soprano repertoire’s most famous and recognizable arias, “Casta diva,” but also a magnificent duet between soprano and mezzo-soprano, a tenor aria for the ages, and a terrific trio of soprano, mezzo soprano and tenor that ranks among the greatest compositions for three voices in all of Italian opera.



Bellini had many admirers in subsequent generations. Giuseppe Verdi, the great maestro of the next generation of Italian composers, used to tell students to study the operas of Bellini if they wanted to learn how to write beautiful and dramatic melodies. His great rival Richard Wagner of the German school was also, ironically, a fan of Bellini and produced more operas by Bellini than any other composer during his years as an opera conductor.

Norma tells a story of a romantic love triangle played against the backdrop of ancient Gaul, involving a Roman proconsul, Pollione, and his affairs with two priestesses of the temple, Norma and her aide Adalgisa. As a vivid portrayal of dramatic content, the opera served as a precursor to many of the later dramatic operas of Verdi.

VincenzoBellini followed up the success of his tender comedy opera La Sonnambula with this grand and exotic tale. In its keen characterization and its dramatic conflict between love and patriotic duty it anticipates the major themes of several Verdi operas. The conflict in the opera is between the native Druids of Britain and the Roman soldiers who are occupying the country. The Druid leaders are Oroveso (the High Priest) and Norma (the High Priestess), and the main Romans are the Proconsul Pollione and his centurion Flavio. Norma was Vincenzo Bellini’s eighth opera and the one that completely secured his fame and fortune as a composer. Although, according to some contemporary reviews, the audience responded coolly to some aspects of Norma at its first performance at Milan's La Scala opera house on December 26, 1831, the public soon warmed to it and made it a popular success. In the nineteenth century, musicians as diverse as Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi, Johannes Brahms, and Gustav Mahler, regarded Norma as a pivotal work. Today Norma is accepted as Bellini's most successful tragic opera.
 


The music of Norma is laden with all of the conventions of Italian opera in the first half of the nineteenth century, including solo vocal arias and duets, some of which follow the prototypical Rossinian crescendo into full-fledged end-of-act choruses. After the introduction, Pollione’s cavatina (Meco all'altar di Venere) foreshadows the events of the opera. Pollione’s cavatina is paired with a cabaletta (Me protegge, mi defende), in which he sings of the protective power of love, in the heroic style and triumphant dotted rhythms. Norma’s famed cavatina, Casta diva, a prayer to the moon goddess, is introduced by a silvery flute solo over undulating violin arpeggios. Rather than independently, as previously in Va crudele, al Dio spietato, Pollione and Adalgisa together in their duet Vieni in Roma /Ciel! Cosм parlar l'ascolto sempre complete musical phrases: once Adalgisa agrees to go to Rome with Pollione, she is under his musical control. A similar concept governs the Act II duet between Adalgisa and Norma, in which Norma’s weakening resolve to allow Adalgisa to beg for Pollione's return is mirrored in her willingness to adopt Adalgisa’s musical language. The finale of Act I consists of a trio in which Norma is musically pitted against Pollione and Adalgisa, and in that of Act II, Oroveso and the chorus of druids punctuate Norma’s central aria (Deh! Non voleri vittime) as she ascends her funeral pyre.

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