BELLINI: I Puritani

I Puritani
Opera in 3 Acts by Vincenzo Bellini
Orquestra Simfònica i Cor del Gran Teatre del Liceu
Barcelona, España
Friedrich Haider, conductor

I caught the first act of Bellini’s I Puritani only, because my DVD copy bought in Zuhai doesn’t play the other CD containing the rest of the opera.

This Liceu Barcelona production under Friedrich Haider about the most vocally difficult opera in existence features a stellar international cast of vocal virtuosi: Edita Gruberova, José Bros and Konstantin Gorny, among others.

Gruberova, despite her age, remains a lyric coloratura force to be reckoned with. She is among the very few sopranos brave enough to tackle extremely difficult roles that require mastery of the complicated style of bel canto singing.

In the first Act, the audience gave her a long applause and ovation after the well-anticipated mad scene where she displayed her bravura fireworks and amazing tonal control. She modulates from a whisper-like pianissimo, tosses off trills effortlessly and navigates all the other “unsingables” like mordents, roulades and scales in between long-drawn out notes before sending her final notes to the stratosphere. You know she’s essaying a mad role because she’s suddenly doing all these vocal acrobatics, mirroring her character’s state of mind.

Bellini has this habit of sending his singers to the upper range of the vocal range, and leaves them there, hanging and twisting in the wind (think of the Casta Diva aria in Norma). No wonder, Pavarotti has once said singing I Puritani is like tight-rope walking.

Bellini, along with Rossini and Donizetti, were the main exponents of bel canto. If it’s a Bellini, you can be sure there is a lot of beautiful and highly melodic singing going on.

Bellini was not a poet, and thus, had to rely on other people to write the libretto before setting the story into music. The libretto by Count Pepoli is amazingly flawed and highly unbelievable. In fact, it is pockmarked with blatant inaccuracies. You see, the story is supposedly set in Puritan Scotland, in Plymouth. A quick check on the map of the UK shows Plymouth firmly located in the south of England, and that history tells us the Puritans were from England, and not from Scotland.

Despite this, Bellini managed to write not only some of the most beautiful music in all opera, but the most difficult to perform as well. This opera requires full-volume singing in the upper part of the voice register all throughout. No wonder then, this opera is less frequently performed despite the marvelous music.

The tenor, Jose Bros, has the most demanding role of any tenor anywhere: he has to hit one F above high C (imagine that!) and two high Ds. No opera, Italian or otherwise, makes seemingly impossible demands than I Puritani. Hitting those unnatural high Cs is already scary enough for any tenor, pushing it way above the normal vocal range can seriously damage the vocal chords as well as jeopardize a fledging career, and so it is important to train assiduously for this single role alone. I have a CD of Pavarotti singing the tenor’s opening aria which contained the high F, and his voice cracked! Bros, however, nailed it in this production without sounding like a castrated calf.

I will not discuss the story line, yet. But what I’ve managed to see and listen so far is quite impressive. How I might be able to watch the remaining Acts, I do not know.

Impressive and highly recommended.