I PURITANI
Bellini was and is famous as the composer of formulaic operas that are long on melody and short on drama. I Puritani is his last work and represents an extreme realization of this formula. Set in England, the story is a rather unlikely encounter between members of the royalist and parliamentary parties after the death of Charles I. Elvira, daughter of a Puritan official, and the Cavalier Arthur are in love. Elvira’s father has consented to their marriage after the intercession of her understanding uncle, Sir George Walton. This has infuriated fellow Roundhead Sir Richard Forth, to whom Elvira was previously promised. Arthur blows it when he smuggles the soon-to-be-condemned Queen Henrietta out of captivity and Elvira thinks he has skipped with some brazen hussy. Elvira goes bonkers over her apparent jilting, and Sir Richard plans to dispose of his rival on the battlefield. Arthur turns up to explain himself to Elvira, which immediately restores her to rationality. Sir Richard relents, and a general pardon is issued to royalists. Everyone lives happily ever after. The end. Pretty thin gruel on which to nourish a grand opera.
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The rendering of the score by Donato Renzetti and the Lyric orchestra was uninspired. Onstage the chorus proved adequate but not brilliant. And as noted above, the direction by Sandro Sequi is of the cattle-drive variety, which would have made the audiences who saw Callas in 1955 feel right at home. Weep not for the old-fashioned methods of opera direction; they are alive and well.
