title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: Morgenthau believed in balanced budgets, stable currency, reduction of the national debt, and the need for more private investment. The Wagner Act regarding labor unions met Morgenthau's requirement, because it strengthened the party's political base and involved no new spending. Morgenthau accepted Roosevelt's double budget as legitimate — that is, a balanced regular budget, and an "emergency" budget for agencies, like the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Public Works Administration (PWA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), that would be temporary until full recovery was at hand. He fought against the veterans' bonus until Congress finally overrode Roosevelt's veto and gave out $2.2 billion in 1936. In the 1937 "Depression within the Depression", Morgenthau was unable to persuade Roosevelt to desist from continued deficit spending. Roosevelt continued to push for more spending, and Morgenthau promoted a balanced budget. In 1937, however, Morgenthau successfully convinced Roosevelt to focus on balancing the budget through major spending cuts and tax increases; Keynesian economists have argued that this new attempt by Roosevelt to balance the budget created the recession of 1937–1938. On November 10, 1937, Morgenthau gave a speech to the Academy of Political Science at New York's Hotel Astor, in which he noted that the Depression had required deficit spending, but that the government needed to cut spending to revive the economy. In his speech, he said:


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: His biggest success was the new Social Security program; he reversed the proposals to fund it from general revenue and insisted it be funded by new taxes on employees. Morgenthau insisted on excluding farm workers and domestic servants from Social Security because workers outside industry would not be paying their way. He questioned the value of the deficit spending that had not reduced unemployment and only added debt:


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: Once confronted by the Holocaust, the Allied Powers reacted slowly. In 1943, Morgenthau's Treasury Department approved the World Jewish Congress' plan to rescue Jews through the use of blocked accounts in Switzerland, but the State Department and the British Foreign Office procrastinated further. Morgenthau and his staff persisted in bypassing State and ultimately confronting Roosevelt in January 1944 with the "Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews".


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: Due to incessant highly visible rescue activism by the Hillel Kook (aka Peter Bergson) led Bergson Group and pressure by Morgenthau and some of his staff, President Roosevelt finally acted and created the United States War Refugee Board (WRB) in January 1944. The board sponsored the Raoul Wallenberg mission to Budapest and allowed an increasing number of Jews to enter the U.S. in 1944 and 1945; as many as 200,000 Jews were saved by the board.


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: Hurwitz (1991) argues that in late 1943, the Treasury Department drafted a report calling for the creation of a special rescue agency for European Jewry. At the same time, several congressmen connected with the "Bergson Group" introduced a resolution also calling for the creation of such an agency. On January 16, 1944, Morgenthau presented Roosevelt with the Treasury report, and the president agreed to create the War Refugee Board, the first major attempt of the United States to deal with the annihilation of European Jews.


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: As for the top Germans, Morgenthau at one point in summer 1944 suggested to Roosevelt that the top 50 or 100 German "arch-criminals" should be shot upon capture. He changed his mind and by early 1945 proposed formal trials.


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: In 1944, Morgenthau proposed the Morgenthau Plan for postwar Germany, calling for Germany to lose its heavy industry, and the Ruhr "should not only be stripped of all presently existing industries, but so weakened and controlled that it can not in the foreseeable future become an industrial area". Germany would keep its rich farmlands in the east. However Stalin insisted on the Oder-Neisse border, which moved those farming areas out of Germany. Therefore, the original Morgenthau plan had to be dropped, Weinberg argues, because it was "too soft on the Germans, not too hard as some still imagine".


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: At the Second Quebec Conference on September 16, 1944, Roosevelt and Morgenthau persuaded the initially very reluctant British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to agree to the Morgenthau Plan, likely using a $6 billion Lend-Lease agreement to do so. Churchill chose however to narrow the scope of Morgenthau's proposal by drafting a new version of the memorandum, which ended up being the version signed by the two statesmen. The gist of the signed memorandum was "This programme for eliminating the war-making industries in the Ruhr and the Saar is looking forward to converting Germany into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in its character."


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: The plan faced opposition in Roosevelt's cabinet, primarily from Henry L. Stimson, and when the plan was leaked to the press, there was public criticism of Roosevelt. The President's response to inquiries was to deny the press reports. As a consequence of the leak, Morgenthau was in bad favor with Roosevelt for a time.


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels used the leaked plan, with some success, to encourage the German people to persevere in their war efforts so that their country would not be turned into a "potato field". General George Marshall complained to Morgenthau that German resistance had strengthened. Hoping to get Morgenthau to relent on his plan for Germany, Roosevelt's son-in-law, Lt. Colonel John Boettiger, who worked in the United States Department of War, explained to Morgenthau how the American troops had had to fight for five weeks against fierce German resistance to capture Aachen and complained to him that the Morgenthau Plan was "worth thirty divisions to the Germans". In late 1944, Roosevelt's election opponent, Thomas E. Dewey, said it was worth "ten divisions". Morgenthau refused to relent.


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: On May 10, 1945, Truman signed the U.S. occupation directive JCS 1067. Morgenthau told his staff that it was a big day for the Treasury, and that he hoped that "someone doesn't recognize it as the Morgenthau Plan". The directive, which was in effect for over two years directed the U.S. forces of occupation to "take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany".


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: In occupied Germany Morgenthau left a direct legacy through what in OMGUS commonly were called "Morgenthau boys". These were U.S. Treasury officials whom General Dwight D. Eisenhower had "loaned" in to the Army of occupation. These people ensured that JCS 1067 was interpreted as strictly as possible. They were most active in the first crucial months of the occupation, but continued their activities for almost two years following the resignations of Morgenthau in mid-1945, and some time later, of their leader, Colonel Bernard Bernstein, who was "the repository of the Morgenthau spirit in the army of occupation". They resigned when, in July 1947, JCS 1067 was replaced by JCS 1779, which instead stressed that "An orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany."


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: Morgenthau's legacy was also seen in the plans for preserving German disarmament by significantly reducing German economic might. (see also Allied plans for German industry after World War II)


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: In October 1945, Morgenthau published a book titled "Germany is Our Problem", in which he described and motivated the Morgenthau plan in great detail. Roosevelt had granted permission for the book the evening before his death, when dining with Morgenthau at Warm Springs. Morgenthau had asked Churchill for permission to also include the text of the then still secret "pastoralization" memorandum signed by Churchill and FDR at Quebec but permission was denied. In November 1945, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone, approved the distribution of 1,000 free copies of the book to American military officials in occupied Germany. Historian Stephen E. Ambrose draws the conclusion that, despite Eisenhower's later claims that the act was not an endorsement of the Morgenthau plan, Eisenhower both approved of the plan and had previously given Morgenthau at least some of his ideas on how Germany should be treated.


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: Following his resignation, along with other prominent individuals such as the former first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, Morgenthau remained for several years an active member of the group campaigning for a "harsh peace" for Germany. Ultimately though, the policy of reintegrating a fully industrialized and de-Nazified modern Germany into Europe was the policy adopted, as described in Frank Capra's influential 1945 short subject "Here is Germany".


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: Morgenthau was first appointed by the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as temporary President of the Bretton Woods Conference, which established the Bretton Woods system, the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank). During the inaugural plenary session on July 1, 1944, the Head of the Mexican Delegation, Eduardo Suarez, nominated him as Permanent President of the Conference. This motion was seconded by the Brazilian Head Delegate, Arthur de Souza Costa, and widely supported by several other delegations such as the Canadian and Soviet ones.


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: In 1945, when Harry S. Truman became President, Morgenthau insisted on accompanying Truman to Potsdam by threatening to quit if he was not allowed to; Truman accepted his resignation immediately. He devoted the remainder of his life to working with Jewish philanthropies, and also became a financial advisor to Israel. Tal Shahar, an Israeli moshav (agricultural community) near Jerusalem, created in 1948, was named in his honor ("Morgenthau" (modern spelling: "Morgentau") means "morning dew" in German, as does "Tal Shahar" in Hebrew).


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: Morgenthau donated his diary of 840 volumes to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. He died in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1967. His son Robert M. Morgenthau was the District Attorney of New York County from 1975 to 2009.


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: The United States Coast Guard "Hamilton"-class cutter USCGC "Morgenthau" (WHEC-722) was named in his honor. The ship was sold to Vietnam Coast Guard as CSB-8020.


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: He was married to Elinor Lehman Fatman, granddaughter of Mayer Lehman, a co-founder of Lehman Brothers; they had three children — Joan Elizabeth Morgenthau Hirschhorn, married to Fred Hirschhorn Jr.; Henry Morgenthau III, and Robert M. Morgenthau. In 1913, Morgenthau purchased a farm in Hopewell Junction, New York, naming it Fishkill Farms. The farm still belongs to the Morgenthau family.


title: Henry Morgenthau Jr.

text: On October 30, 1931, along with then Gov. Franklin Roosevelt, Morgenthau became a member of Tri-Po-Bed Grotto in Poughkeespie, NY, an appendant body of Freemasonry.


title: Christian martyr

text: In Christianity, a martyr is a person considered to have died because of their testimony for Jesus or faith in Jesus. In years of the early church, stories depict this often occurring through death by sawing, stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake or other forms of torture and capital punishment. The word "martyr" comes from the Koine word μάρτυς, "mártys", which means "witness" or "testimony".


title: Christian martyr

text: At first, the term applied to Apostles. Once Christians started to undergo persecution, the term came to be applied to those who suffered hardships for their faith. Finally, it was restricted to those who had been killed for their faith. The early Christian period before Constantine I was the "Age of Martyrs". "Early Christians venerated martyrs as powerful intercessors, and their utterances were treasured as inspired by the Holy Spirit."


title: Christian martyr

text: In western Christian art, martyrs are often shown holding a palm frond as an attribute, representing the victory of spirit over flesh, and it was widely believed that a picture of a palm on a tomb meant that a martyr was buried there.


title: Christian martyr

text: The use of the word () in non-biblical Greek was primarily in a legal context. It was used for a person who speaks from personal observation. The "martyr", when used in a non-legal context, may also signify a proclamation that the speaker believes to be truthful. The term was used by Aristotle for observations, but also for ethical judgments and expressions of moral conviction that can not be empirically observed. There are several examples where Plato uses the term to signify "witness to truth", including in Laws.


title: Christian martyr

text: The Greek word "martyr" signifies a "witness" who testifies to a fact he has knowledge about from personal observation. It is in this sense that the term first appears in the Book of Acts, in reference to the Apostles as "witnesses" of all that they had observed in the public life of Christ. In , Peter, in his address to the Apostles and disciples regarding the election of a successor to Judas, employs the term with this meaning: "Wherefore, of these men who have accompanied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day he was taken up from us, one of these must be made witness with us of his resurrection".


title: Christian martyr

text: The Apostles, according to tradition, faced grave dangers until eventually almost all suffered death for their convictions. Thus, within the lifetime of the Apostles, the term "martyrs" came to be used in the sense of a witness who at any time might be called upon to deny what he testified to, under penalty of death. From this stage the transition was easy to the ordinary meaning of the term, as used ever since in Christian literature: a martyr, or witness of Christ, is a person who suffers death rather than deny his faith. Saint John, at the end of the first century, employs the word with this meaning.


title: Christian martyr

text: A distinction between martyrs and confessors is traceable to the latter part of the second century: those only were martyrs who had suffered the extreme penalty, whereas the title of confessor was given to Christians who had shown their willingness to die for their belief, by bravely enduring imprisonment or torture, but were not put to death. Yet the term martyr was still sometimes applied during the third century to persons still living, as, for instance, by Cyprian who gave the title of martyrs to a number of bishops, priests, and laymen condemned to penal servitude in the mines.


title: Christian martyr

text: Religious martyrdom is considered one of the more significant contributions of Second Temple Judaism to western civilization. It is believed that the concept of voluntary death for God developed out of the conflict between King Antiochus Epiphanes IV and the Jewish people. 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees recount numerous martyrdoms suffered by Jews resisting the Hellenizing of their Seleucid overlords, being executed for such crimes as observing the Sabbath, circumcising their children or refusing to eat pork or meat sacrificed to foreign gods. With few exceptions, this assumption has lasted from the early Christian period to this day, accepted both by Jews and Christians.


title: Christian martyr

text: According to Daniel Boyarin, there are "two major theses with regard to the origins of Christian martyrology, which [can be referred to] as the Frend thesis and the Bowersock thesis". Boyarin characterizes W. H. C. Frend's view of martyrdom as having originated in "Judaism" and Christian martyrdom as a continuation of that practice. Frend argues that the Christian concept of martyrdom can only be understood as springing from Jewish roots. Frend characterizes Judaism as "a religion of martyrdom" and that it was this "Jewish psychology of martyrdom" that inspired Christian martyrdom. Frend writes, "In the first two centuries AD. there was a living pagan tradition of self-sacrifice for a cause, a preparedness if necessary to defy an unjust ruler, that existed alongside the developing Christian concept of martyrdom inherited from Judaism."


title: Christian martyr

text: In contrast to Frend's hypothesis, Boyarin describes G. W. Bowersock's view of Christian martyrology as being completely unrelated to the Jewish practice, being instead "a practice that grew up in an entirely Roman cultural environment and then was borrowed by Jews". Bowersock argues that the Christian tradition of martyrdom came from the urban culture of the Roman Empire, especially in Asia Minor:


title: Christian martyr

text: Martyrdom was ... solidly anchored in the civic life of the Graeco-Roman world of the Roman empire. It ran its course in the great urban spaces of the agora and the amphitheater, the principal settings for public discourse and for public spectacle. It depended upon the urban rituals of the imperial cult and the interrogation protocols of local and provincial magistrates. The prisons and brothels of the cities gave further opportunities for the display of the martyr’s faith.


title: Christian martyr

text: Boyarin points out that, despite their apparent opposition to each other, both of these arguments are based on the assumption that Judaism and Christianity were already two separate and distinct religions. He challenges that assumption and argues that "making of martyrdom was at least in part, part and parcel of the process of the making of Judaism and Christianity as distinct entities".


title: Christian martyr

text: Tertullian, one of the 2nd-century ecclesiastical writers wrote that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church", implying that a martyr's willing sacrifice of their lives leads to the conversion of others.


title: Christian martyr

text: The Age of Martyrs also forced the church to confront theological issues such as the proper response to those Christians who "lapsed" and renounced the Christian faith to save their lives: were they to be allowed back into the Church? Some felt they should not, while others said they could. In the end, it was agreed to allow them in after a period of penance. The re-admittance of the "lapsed" became a defining moment in the Church because it allowed the sacrament of repentance and readmission to the Church despite issues of sin. This issue caused the Donatist and Novatianist schisms.


title: Christian martyr

text: "Martyrdom for the faith ... became a central feature in the Christian experience." "Notions of persecution by the 'world', ... run deep in the Christian tradition. For evangelicals who read the New Testament as an inerrant history of the primitive church, the understanding that to be a Christian is to be persecuted is obvious, if not inescapable."


title: Christian martyr

text: The "eschatological ideology" of martyrdom was based on an irony found in the Pauline epistles: "to live outside of Christ is to die, and to die in Christ is to live."


title: Christian martyr

text: In "Ad Martyras", Tertullian writes that some Christians "eagerly desired it" ("et ultro appetita") [i.e. martyrdom].


title: Christian martyr

text: The martyr homilies were written in ancient Greek by authors such as Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Asterius of Amasea, John Chrysostom and Hesychius of Jerusalem. These homilies were part of the hagiographical tradition of saints and martyrs.


title: Christian martyr

text: This experience, and the associated martyrs and apologists, would have significant historical and theological consequences for the developing faith.


title: Christian martyr

text: Among other things, persecution sparked the devotion of the saints, facilitated the rapid growth and spread of Christianity, prompted defenses and explanations of Christianity (the "apologies") and, in its aftermath, raised fundamental questions about the nature of the church.


title: Christian martyr

text: Stephen is the first martyr reported in the New Testament, accused of blasphemy and stoned by the Sanhedrin under the Levitical law. Towards the end of the 1st century, the martyrdom of both Peter and Paul is reported by Clement of Rome in 1 Clement. The martyrdom of Peter is also alluded to in various writings written between 70 and 130 AD, including in John 21:19; 1 Peter 5:1; and 2 Peter 1:12–15. The martyrdom of Paul is also alluded to in 2 Timothy 4:6–7. While not specifying his Christianity as involved in the cause of death, the Jewish historian Josephus reports that James, the brother of Jesus, was stoned by Jewish authorities under the charge of law breaking, which is similar to the Christian perception of Stephen's martyrdom as being a result of stoning for the penalty of law breaking. Furthermore, there is a report regarding the martyrdom of James son of Zebedee in Acts 12:1–2, and knowledge that both John and James, son of Zebedee, ended up martyred, appears to be reflected in Mark 10:39.


title: Christian martyr

text: Judith Perkins has written that many ancient Christians believed that "to be a Christian was to suffer,"


title: Christian martyr

text: partly inspired by the example of Jesus. The lives of the martyrs became a source of inspiration for some Christians, and their relics were honored. Numerous crypts and chapels in the Roman catacombs bear witness to the early veneration for those champions of freedom of conscience. Special commemoration services, at which the holy Sacrifice were offered over their tombs gave rise to the time honoured custom of consecrating altars by enclosing in them the relics of martyrs.


title: Christian martyr

text: In its first three centuries, the Christian church endured periods of persecution at the hands of Roman authorities. Christians were persecuted by local authorities on an intermittent and ad hoc basis. In addition, there were several periods of empire-wide persecution which were directed from the seat of government in Rome.


title: Christian martyr

text: Christians were the targets of persecution because they refused to worship the Roman gods or to pay homage to the emperor as divine. In the Roman Empire, refusing to sacrifice to the Emperor or the empire's gods was tantamount to refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to one's country.


title: Christian martyr

text: The cult of the saints was significant to the process of Christianization, but during the first centuries of the Church the celebrations venerating the saints took place in hiding. Michael Gaddis writes that "[t]he Christian experience of violence during the pagan persecutions shaped the ideologies and practices that drove further religious conflicts over the course of the fourth and fifth centuries". Martyrdom was a formative experience and influenced how Christians justified or condemned the use of violence in later generations. Thus, the collective memory of religious suffering found in early Christian works on the historical experience of persecution, religious suffering and martyrdom shaped Christian culture and identity.


title: Christian martyr

text: Historians recognize that during the Early Middle Ages, the Christian populations living in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslim armies between the 7th and 10th centuries AD suffered religious discrimination, religious persecution, religious violence, and martyrdom multiple times at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers. As People of the Book, Christians under Muslim rule were subjected to "dhimmi" status (along with Jews, Samaritans, Gnostics, Mandeans, and Zoroastrians), which was inferior to the status of Muslims. Christians and other religious minorities thus faced religious discrimination and religious persecution, in that they were banned from proselytising (for Christians, it was forbidden to evangelize or spread Christianity) in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslims on pain of death; they were banned from bearing arms, undertaking certain professions, and were obligated to dress differently in order to distinguish themselves from Arabs. Under "sharia", non-Muslims were obligated to pay "jizya" and "kharaj" taxes, together with periodic heavy ransom levied upon Christian communities by Muslim rulers in order to fund military campaigns, all of which contributed a significant proportion of income to the Islamic states while conversely reducing many Christians to poverty, and these financial and social hardships forced many Christians to convert to Islam. Christians unable to pay these taxes were forced to surrender their children to the Muslim rulers as payment who would sell them as slaves to Muslim households where they were forced to convert to Islam. Many Christian martyrs were executed under the Islamic death penalty for defending their Christian faith through dramatic acts of resistance such as refusing to convert to Islam, repudiation of the Islamic religion and subsequent reconversion to Christianity, and blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs.


title: Christian martyr

text: In "Dives and Pauper", a 15th-century Middle English moral treatise on the Ten Commandments, the figure Dives poses this question about the First Commandment: "Why are there no martyrs these days, as there used to be?" Pauper responds that the English were creating many new martyrs sparing "neither their own king nor their own bishops, no dignity, no rank, no status, no degree". Pauper's statement is based on historical events, including the murder of King Richard II and the executions of Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York. Dana Piroyansky uses the term "political martyrs" for men of "high estate", including kings and bishops, who were killed during the Late Middle Ages during the course of the rebellions, civil wars, regime changes, and other political upheavals of the 14th and 15th centuries. Piroyansky notes that although these men were never formally canonized as saints, they were venerated as miracle-working martyrs and their tombs were turned into shrines following their violent and untimely deaths. J. C. Russell has written that the "cults of political saints" may have been a way of "showing resistance to the king" that would have been difficult to control or punish.


title: Christian martyr

text: Some Roman Catholic writers (such as Thomas Cahill) continue to use a system of degrees of martyrdom that was developed in early Christianity. Some of these degrees bestow the title of martyr on those who sacrifice large elements of their lives alongside those who sacrifice life itself. These degrees were mentioned by Pope Gregory I in "Homilia in Evangelia"; in it he wrote of "three modes of martyrdom, designated by the colors, red, blue (or green), and white". A believer was bestowed the title of red martyr due to either torture or violent death by religious persecution. The term "white martyrdom" was used by the Church Father Jerome, "for those such as desert hermits who aspired to the condition of martyrdom through strict asceticism". Blue (or green) martyrdom "involves the denial of desires, as through fasting and penitent labors without necessarily implying a journey or complete withdrawal from life".


title: Christian martyr

text: Also along these lines are the terms "wet martyr" (a person who has shed blood or been executed for the faith) and "dry martyr" (a person who "had suffered every indignity and cruelty" but not shed blood, nor suffered execution).


title: Christian martyr

text: The Center for the Study of Global Christianity of Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary, an evangelical seminary based in Hamilton, Massachusetts, previously estimated that 100,000 Christians die annually for their faith, although the CSGC has now disavowed this estimate. Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, later referred to this number in a radio address to the 23rd session of the Human Rights Council.


title: Christian martyr

text: The methodology used in arriving at the estimate of 100,000 has been widely criticized. The majority of the one million people the Center counted as Christians who died as martyrs between 2000 and 2010 died during the Civil War in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the report did not take into consideration the political or ethnic differences which are accepted as the primary motive behind these killings. Todd Johnson, director of the CSGC, says his centre has abandoned this statistic. The Vatican reporter and author of "The Global War on Christians" John Allen has said: "I think it would be good to have reliable figures on this issue, but I don't think it ultimately matters in terms of the point of my book, which is to break through the narrative that tends to dominate discussion in the West – that Christians can't be persecuted because they belong to the world's most powerful church. The truth is two-thirds of the 2.3 billion Christians in the world today live… in dangerous neighbourhoods. They are often poor. They often belong to ethnic, linguistic and cultural minorities. And they are often at risk."


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: The 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout was the ninth work stoppage in Major League Baseball (MLB) history. It began at 12:01 a.m. EST on December 2, 2021, after MLB owners voted unanimously to enact a lockout upon the expiration of the 2016 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the league and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA). It ended on March 10, 2022, with the signing of a new agreement. Issues raised between the league and union involved compensation for young players and limitations on tanking to receive higher selections in the MLB draft.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: On March 1, 2022, following over a week of daily negotiations between the two sides, and three months of on and off negotiations, MLB cancelled the first two series of the regular season. MLB and the MLBPA reached an agreement on a new five-year CBA on March 10. The new CBA salvaged the full 162-game 2022 season by delaying Opening Day from March 31 to April 7, with originally cancelled games to be made up during the season.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: The 2021–22 lockout was the first MLB work stoppage since the 1994–95 strike and the first lockout of the players since 1990. This was the second interruption of regular season play in three seasons, with the 2020 season having been delayed and shortened in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: Collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) between Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), the labor union, business, and charitable foundation of MLB players, are typically ratified on a five-year basis, with the most recent CBA ratified on December1, 2016. MLB and the Players Association operated under the terms of the CBA until 11:59p.m.EST on December 1, 2021. The CBA affects all of the economic aspects of an MLB season, including the length of the season, the "per diem" that players may receive on a road trip, and the semantics of both free agency and salary arbitration. The most recent prior MLB work stoppage was a strike that lasted from 1994 to 1995 and resulted in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series. The last time the owners had initiated a lockout of the players was 1990. The most recent prior dispute between MLB and the players' union was in , as players and teams debated how to restructure a season affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: In a November meeting, the MLBPA drafted a proposal for the upcoming CBA with a number of demands that would expand player control over the terms of their contract, particularly for younger players, who are under control of the team that drafts them for the first six years of their professional baseball career. Of particular concern to the players' union was the ongoing trend of tanking, in which teams trade or release productive players and become relatively inactive in free agency in the hopes that they will finish with a losing season and receive higher compensation in future MLB drafts. The union has argued that tanking reduces competitive integrity within MLB and incentivizes teams with no intention of winning games. MLBPA executive director Tony Clark also voiced a desire to create new systems that would increase compensation for talented young players, and the union vocally disapproved of implementing a salary cap.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: MLB's first proposal for a 2021 CBA was aimed at establishing narrower ranges for each team's combined salary, with a hard minimum of US$100million per team and an incremental luxury tax beginning at $180million. As negotiations continued, owners made three separate proposals to the players' union, all of which were rejected, and which contained a number of concessions to player demands. These included eliminating the requirement for teams to lose a draft pick when signing a free agent who rejected their qualifying offer; a draft lottery modeled after that of the National Basketball Association; a universal designated hitter; and increases to both the player minimum salary and the competitive balance tax threshold. MLB was also seeking an expanded postseason for the , which would allow 12 of the league's 30 teams to reach the playoffs, as opposed to the previous 10-team playoff field that was introduced in 2012.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: Many MLB teams, fearing the freeze in contract signings that would arise in a lockout, scrambled to sign prominent free agents at the end of November. More than $1.9billion in new contracts were signed during the free agency period before the lockout, including a one-day record of $1.4billion in contracts signed on December1.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: At 10:00a.m.CST on November 30, 2021, one day before the CBA was set to expire, the MLBPA made its economic proposal to MLB at the Four Seasons hotel in Irving, Texas. MLB owners and negotiators then discussed the proposal independently, and both sides reconvened at 3:00p.m. for additional negotiations. Talks resumed for seven minutes on the afternoon of December 1 before ending abruptly. The union rejected the league's proposal to drop certain demands, including alterations to the free agency process. Negotiations came to a halt when league representatives Dan Halem and Richard Monfort left the hotel. That evening, MLB owners voted unanimously to enact a lockout upon the expiration of the 2016 CBA.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: The lockout officially began at 12:01a.m.EST on December 2, 2021, announced via a press release from Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of Baseball. It instituted a transaction freeze, including the postponement of the major league portion of the Rule 5 draft. It was the first year since 1920 to not have a major league phase of the Rule 5 draft, though the minor league phase went ahead as scheduled.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: As to not use their likenesses for commercial purposes absent a CBA, all official MLB properties removed imagery of active players, including player headshots, from their content upon its expiration. MLB.com (which had not yet launched at the time of the last lockout) was primarily publishing retrospective-based articles, while MLB Network eventually suspended all regular offseason studio programming in favor of only carrying documentaries and classic game broadcasts. As a show of solidarity, some players changed their avatars on social media accounts to the generic silhouette image being used on MLB.com.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: The first meeting between the league and the players' union occurred over Zoom on January 13, 2022. The league offered a proposal which included pay increases for veteran players, performance bonuses, and several other changes on issues of tanking, expanding the playoff field, and use of a universal designated hitter. The MLBPA was unimpressed with the proposal, which explicitly did not address the issue of free agency eligibility and which prevented any player with fewer than three years of major league play from salary arbitration; previously, a select number of players who had spent two years in the league were eligible for arbitration.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: The parties met again on January 24. The MLBPA rejected most of the terms put forth by the league during the January 13 meeting.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: The parties met for a second consecutive day on January 25. The league increased its proposed minimum salary to $615,000.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: The parties met for a fourth time on February 1. In a counter offer, the players association lowered the bonus pool money that would be awarded to exceptional pre-arbitration performers from $105 million to $100 million.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: On February 3, the league requested a federal mediator to help resolve the lockout. The league also said they would not make a counter offer to the players association. One day later, the MLBPA rejected the league's request for a federal mediator.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: On February 10, Manfred held a press conference, where he said that the league had "agreed" both to the implementation of a universal designated hitter and the elimination of draft-pick compensation for free agents who reject qualifying offers.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: On February 18, the league announced that it had cancelled all spring training games through March 4.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: MLB told the players' union on February 20 that the last day to come to an agreement and have the season start on time would be February 28 and that the games missed would not be made up.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: Beginning on February 21, in the final week before the league's self imposed deadline, the two sides began meeting every day in an attempt to start the regular season on time.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: During the February 23 meeting, the league proposed a bump in the leaguewide minimum salary to $640,000 in the upcoming season. The minimum salary would raise by $10,000 per season for the rest of the CBA.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: On February 25, the league announced they had cancelled all spring training games through March 7. The February 25 meeting focused on the format for the lottery determining the draft order.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: Monetary issues were further discussed during the February 27 meeting. While there were fewer formal proposals in this meeting, both sides felt it was productive.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: On February 28, the two sides held a marathon negotiating session that continued until the early hours of March 1. The two sides agreed to a 12-team postseason, something that was previously thought to be a major point of strife. While the session did not end in an agreement between the two sides, both sides were reportedly optimistic that an agreement could be reached soon thereafter. The league decided to move its self-imposed deadline for cancelling regular season games to 5p.m.EST on March 1.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: Despite reports that the two sides were optimistic in coming to an agreement, they struggled to come to one during the March 1 meeting. During the negotiations, the league released statements to the press claiming that the union’s tone had changed. The union, and several players on social media denied their tone had changed. The major disputes between the two parties centered around the luxury-tax thresholds, pre-arbitration bonus pool, and the minimum salary. The league made its "best and final offer" prior to the 5p.m. deadline. The players were extremely disappointed with the offer, with one union official saying "We are done. This was always [the league’s] plan." The union unanimously rejected the offer. The two sides then ended their negotiations. In a press conference immediately thereafter, commissioner Rob Manfred officially announced that the first two series of the regular season had been cancelled.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: The two sides met again for an informal meeting on March 3. Unlike previous meetings, only two members of each side were in attendance, including MLB's Dan Halem and the MLBPA's Bruce Meyer. According to reports, no official proposals were made as the meeting was intended to map out further negotiations.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: The two sides met for a more formal meeting on March 6. The union did not change their proposals for the luxury tax thresholds, something that was reportedly a major disagreement between the two sides.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: The two sides met again formally on March 8. The league proposed an increase on the base luxury tax threshold to $230 million in 2022, rising to $242 million in 2026. The league also proposed a $50 million pre-arbitration bonus pool with no increases, $30 million short of the player association's request for $80 million with a $5 million increase per year. The league added several new facets to the proposal, including a third surcharge to the luxury tax, reportedly in response to New York Mets owner Steve Cohen's willingness to spend record-setting amounts on his team's payroll. Cohen reportedly was fine with the new surcharge if "MLB thought it was for the greater good." Other aspects of the new offer included a maximum of five options before a player is put on waivers. The league also proposed that "small market" teams could only pick in the draft lottery for two consecutive years before being downgraded to the 10th overall pick, while "big market" teams could only do so for one year. The threshold to qualify as a "small market" or "big market" team was not initially defined to the public. Under MLB's proposal, the top two vote-getters for each league's Rookie of the Year Award would receive a full year of service time. Negotiations continued into the early morning of March 9. The players association “requested to speak to its board again early tomorrow before coming back with a proposal.” The league moved its deadline for a new collective bargaining agreement to be in place to conduct a 162-game season to March 9.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: The two sides continued negotiations on March 9 where an international draft became a focal point in negotiations. The league also proposed a slot value of $5.5 million for the first overall draft pick, which was slightly up from their last proposal. In the union's counter proposal, its proposed CBT thresholds dropped further. After previously seeking year-to-year thresholds of $238 million, $244 million, $250 million, $256 million and $263 million, the March 9 proposal from the union offered thresholds of $232 million, $235 million, $240 million, $245 million, and $250 million. The union also proposed a $710,000 league minimum in 2022, $10,000 away from the league’s proposed $700,000 figure. Despite the league and the union closing the gap on these core economics issues, the international draft was a major disagreement. The league would not give a full counter to the union until they picked one of those choices, and set a deadline for 6p.m.EST for a decision to be made. When the union declined all three offers, the league postponed games once again, this time until April 14. Despite this, negotiations between the two sides on the international draft continued into the early morning hours of March 10. While no deal was made, the two sides did announce they would meet again later in the day.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: Negotiations continued formally on March 10. The two sides reached an agreement regarding the international draft, something that halted negotiations a day prior. Following this agreement, the league made a full counter-proposal which saw its proposed pre-arbitration bonus pool rise from $40 million to $50 million. The players' union voted 26-12 to accept the league's proposal. During a meeting at 6:00p.m.EST, MLB team owners voted unanimously to ratify the new collective bargaining agreement. The lockout was officially lifted one hour later at 7:00p.m.EST.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: The lockout was officially lifted at 7:00p.m.EST, on Thursday, March 10, restoring teams' abilities to be in contact with players and effectively reopening free agency. At the time of the lockout's lifting, there were approximately 250 free agents remaining unsigned, including notable players such as Carlos Correa, Freddie Freeman, and Clayton Kershaw. As the lockout was lifted, the likeness of active players was reinstated on official MLB websites and social media accounts after a three-month hiatus with only content relating to retired players, minor leaguers, and miscellaneous topics.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: Players began to arrive at Cactus League and Grapefruit League training sites on March 11, two days before the mandatory reporting date and 27 days before the regular season's Opening Day on April 7.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: The first free agent to be signed following the lockout was Drew VerHagen by the St. Louis Cardinals on March 11. The first eight-figure contract agreed upon post-lockout was Carlos Rodón with the San Francisco Giants for $44 million over two years.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: Several players spoke out about the lockout, mostly in alignment with the MLBPA and often in criticism of MLB. Upon the instatement of the lockout, many players took to social media to share their reactions, Jake Diekman and Andrew McCutchen sharing memes about the situation. Several players, including Trevor Williams, changed their Twitter avatars to a blank silhouette of a player used on MLB.com player profiles due to the lockout. Marcus Stroman criticized Rob Manfred after several failed negotiations in early February, calling him "Manclown" and saying that he needed to "stop ruining baseball." Following the cancellation of regular season games after more failed negotiations in late February, Stroman criticized Manfred again, taking to Twitter to call for his firing and expressing his grievances with MLB's marketing of players. Mike Trout spoke out on the cancellations, criticizing the league's perceived unwillingness to compromise and saying that a fair CBA needed to be achieved despite his desire to play games.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: Many members of baseball media criticized the lockout, both through social media and opinion articles. ESPN's Jeff Passan tweeted that "If you went and got the next 1,200 best players in the world, the product would suffer greatly. If you handed MLB teams over to any 30 competent businesspeople, the sport would not suffer. Actually, it might improve." Tyler Kepner of "The New York Times" described MLB's final February offer as "an offer that was engineered to be rejected." Grant Brisbee of "The Athletic" criticized the owners and the dialogue surrounding the lockout, declaring that there was "no both-sidesing this one."


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: In a poll conducted by the "Los Angeles Times" among adults who considered themselves baseball fans, 6 in 10 respondents said that the lockout was making them lose interest in the 2022 MLB season. A Morning Consult poll released on March 8 found that among self-identified MLB fans, 45% blamed team owners for the stalemate in negotiations while 21% blamed the players and 34% had no opinion. The survey found a higher percentage of blame for the owners than a 2020 Morning Consult poll that was taken when the league was attempting to negotiate a shortened season in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout

text: Specific aspects of MLB and MLBPA proposals were met with mixed reactions by fans. The prospect of larger bases was met with criticism by some fans while others praised the idea for its potential to reduce player injuries from sliding or tripping.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: The theory of reasoned action (TRA or ToRA) aims to explain the relationship between attitudes and behaviors within human action. It is mainly used to predict how individuals will behave based on their pre-existing attitudes and behavioral intentions. An individual's decision to engage in a particular behavior is based on the outcomes the individual expects will come as a result of performing the behavior. Developed by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen in 1967, the theory derived from previous research in social psychology, persuasion models, and attitude theories. Fishbein's theories suggested a relationship between attitude and behaviors (the A-B relationship). However, critics estimated that attitude theories were not proving to be good indicators of human behavior. The TRA was later revised and expanded by the two theorists in the following decades to overcome any discrepancies in the A-B relationship with the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and reasoned action approach (RAA). The theory is also used in communication discourse as a theory of understanding.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: The primary purpose of the TRA is to understand an individual's voluntary behavior by examining the underlying basic motivation to perform an action. TRA states that a person's intention to perform a behavior is the main predictor of whether or not they actually perform that behavior. Additionally, the normative component (i.e. social norms surrounding the act) also contributes to whether or not the person will actually perform the behavior. According to the theory, intention to perform a certain behavior precedes the actual behavior. This intention is known as behavioral intention and comes as a result of a belief that performing the behavior will lead to a specific outcome. Behavioral intention is important to the theory because these intentions "are determined by attitudes to behaviors and subjective norms". TRA suggests that stronger intentions lead to increased effort to perform the behavior, which also increases the likelihood for the behavior to be performed.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: A positivistic approach to behavior research, TRA attempts to predict and explain one's intention of performing a certain "behavior". The theory requires that "behavior" be clearly defined in terms of the four following concepts: Action (e.g. to go, get), Target (e.g. a mammogram), Context (e.g. at the breast screening center), and Time (e.g. in the 12 months). According to TRA, behavioral intention is the main motivator of "behavior", while the two key determinants on behavioral intention are people's attitudes and norms. By examining attitudes and subjective norms, researchers can gain an understanding as to whether or not one will perform the intended action.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: According to TRA, "attitudes" are one of the key determinants of behavioral intention and refer to the way people feel towards a particular behavior. These "attitudes" are influenced by two factors: the strength of behavioral beliefs regarding the outcomes of the performed behavior (i.e. whether or not the outcome is probable) and the evaluation of the potential outcomes (i.e. whether or not the outcome is positive). "Attitudes" regarding a certain behavior can either be positive, negative or neutral. The theory stipulates that there exists a direct correlation between "attitudes" and outcomes, such that if one believes that a certain behavior will lead to a desirable or favorable outcome, then one is more likely to have a positive "attitude" towards the behavior. Alternatively, if one believes that a certain behavior will lead to an undesirable or unfavorable outcome, then one is more likely to have a negative "attitude" towards the behavior. and influence the decision of innovation adoption.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: "Behavioral belief" allows us to understand people's motivations for their behavior in terms of the behavior's consequences. This concept stipulates that people tend to associate the performance of a certain behavior with a certain set of outcomes or features. For example, a person believes that if he or she studies for a month for his or her driver's license test, that one will pass the test after failing it the first time without studying at all. Here, the "behavioral belief" is that studying for a month is equated with success, whereas not studying at all is associated with failure.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: The "evaluation" of the outcome refers to the way people perceive and evaluate the potential outcomes of a performed behavior. Such "evaluations" are conceived in a binary "good-bad" fashion-like manner. For example, a person may evaluate the outcome of quitting smoking cigarettes as positive if the behavioral belief is improved breathing and clean lungs. Conversely, a person may evaluate the outcome of quitting smoking cigarettes as negative if the behavioral belief is weight gain after smoking cessation.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: "Subjective norms" are also one of the key determinants of behavioral intention and refer to the way perceptions of relevant groups or individuals such as family members, friends, and peers may affect one's performance of the behavior. Ajzen defines "subjective norms" as the "perceived social pressure to perform or not perform the behavior". According to TRA, people develop certain beliefs or normative beliefs as to whether or not certain behaviors are acceptable. These beliefs shape one's perception of the behavior and determine one's intention to perform or not perform the behavior. For example, if one believes that recreational drug use (the behavior) is acceptable within one's social group, one will more likely be willing to engage in the activity. Alternatively, if one's friends groups perceive that the behavior is bad, one will be less likely to engage in recreational drug use. However, "subjective norms" also take into account people's motivation to comply with their social circle's views and perceptions, which vary depending on the situation and the individual's motivations.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: "Normative beliefs" touch on whether or not referent groups approve of the action. There exists a direct correlation between "normative beliefs" and performance of the behavior. Usually, the more likely the referent groups will approve of the action, the more likely the individual will perform the act. Conversely, the less likely the referent groups will approve of the action, the less likely the individual will perform the act.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: "Motivation to comply" addresses the fact that individuals may or may not comply with social norms of the referent groups surrounding the act. Depending on the individual's motivations in terms of adhering to social pressures, the individual will either succumb to the social pressures of performing the act if it is deemed acceptable, or alternatively will resist to the social pressures of performing the act if it is deemed unacceptable.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: "Behavioral intention" is a function of both attitudes and subjective norms toward that behavior (also known as the normative component). Attitudes being how strongly one holds the attitude toward the act and subjective norms being the social norms associated with the act. The stronger the attitude and the more positive the subjective norm, the higher the A-B relationship should be. However, the attitudes and subjective norms are unlikely to be weighted equally in predicting behavior. Depending on the individual and situation, these factors might have different impacts on "behavioral intention", thus a weight is associated with each of these factors. A few studies have shown that direct prior experience with a certain activity results in an increased weight on the attitude component of the "behavioral intention" function.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: The TRA theorists note that there are three conditions that can affect the relationship between behavioral intention and behavior. The first condition is that "the measure of intention must correspond with respect to their levels of specificity". This means that to predict a specific behavior, the behavioral intention must be equally specific. The second condition is that there must be "stability of intentions between time of measurement and performance of behavior". The intention must remain the same between the time that it is given and the time that the behavior is performed. The third condition is "the degree to which carrying out the intention is under the volitional control of the individual". The individual always has the control of whether or not to perform the behavior. These conditions have to do with the transition from verbal responses to actual behavior.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: While Fishbein and Ajzen developed the TRA within the field of health to understand health behaviors, the theorists asserted that TRA could be applied in any given context to understand and even predict any human behavior. According to Sheppard et al., behavioral intention can predict the performance of "any voluntary act, unless intent changes prior to the performance or unless the intention measure does not correspond to the behavioral criterion in terms of action, target, context, time-frame and/or specificity". Their statement asserts that according to TRA, the measure of behavioral intention can predict whether or not an individual will perform a certain act, as long as the behavioral intention remains the same and the behavior is clearly and properly defined. Broadening the scope of TRA, Sheppard conducted a study in which they applied TRA in situations that did not completely comply or conform with Fishbein and Ajzen's framework. Surveying 87 previous empirical studies, they applied the theory in contexts where the individual did not have full volitional control over the behavior and/or where individuals did not have all the information to develop the intention. To their surprise, they found that TRA could successfully be applied in situations that did not fully adhere to the three formal terms and conditions specified by the theory.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: Although the scope of TRA is wide, the theory still has its limitations and like any other theory, needs constant refinement and revision particularly when extending to choice and goals. The distinction between a goal intention and a behavioral intention concerns the capability to achieve one's intention, which involves multiple variables thus creating great uncertainty. Ajzen acknowledged that "some behaviors are more likely to present problems of controls than others, but we can never be absolutely certain that we will be in a position to carry out our intentions. Viewed in this light it becomes clear that strictly speaking every intention is a goal whose attainment is subject to some degree of uncertainty."


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: According to Eagly and Chaiken, TRA does not take into account that certain conditions that enable the performance of a behavior are not available to individuals. Since the TRA focuses on behaviors that people decisively enact, the theory is limited in terms of being able to predict behaviors that require access to certain opportunities, skills, conditions, and/or resources. Additionally, certain intentions do not necessarily play a role in terms of connecting attitudes and behavior. According to a study conducted by Bagozzi and Yi, the performance of a behavior is not always preceded by a strong intent. In fact, attitudes and behaviors may not always be linked by intentions, particularly when the behavior does not require much cognitive effort.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: In 1979, H. C. Triandis proposed expanding TRA to include more components. These factors were habit, facilitating conditions, and affect. When a person performs a behavior in a routine manner they form a habit. Facilitating conditions are conditions that make completion of an action more or less difficult. Both of these conditions affect their behavior directly. On the other hand, affect is the emotional response a person has towards a behavior and this emotional response only affects behavioral intention rather than directly affecting behavior. This expanded version of TRA has been used to study behaviors like women's participation in mammography procedures.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: In 1985, Ajzen extended TRA to what he refers as the theory of planned behavior (TPB). This involves the addition of one major predictor—perceived behavioral control. This addition was introduced to account for times when people have the intention to conduct the behavior, but the actual behavior is thwarted because of subjective and objective reasons. In the theory of planned behavior, the attitude, subjective norms, and behavioral control have "important although differently weighted effects on a person's intention to behave".


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: In spite of the improvement, it is suggested that TRA and TPB only provides an account of the determinants of behavior when both motivation and opportunity to process information are high. Further research demonstrating the causal relationships among the variables in TPB and any expansions of it is clearly necessary. The model also mentions little about the memory process.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: TRA has been used in many studies as a framework for examining specific kinds of behavior such as communication behavior, consumer behavior and health behavior. Many researchers use the theory to study behaviors that are associated with high risks and danger like unethical conduct, as well as deviant behavior. In contrast, some research has applied the theory to more normative and rational types of action like voting behavior. Researchers Davies, Foxall, and Pallister suggest that TRA can be tested if "behavior is measured objectively without drawing a connection to prior intention". Most studies, however, look at intention because of its central role in the theory.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: TRA has been applied to the study of whistle-blowing intentions and hazing in college organizations, specifically fraternities and sororities. Richardson et al. set out to study whistle-blowing by using TRA as a framework to predict whether or not individuals will come forward about report hazing incidents. Their study served to examine whether the relationships suggested by the TRA model remain true in predicting whistle blowing intentions, and if these relationships would change depending on the severity of the hazing incident.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: Richardson et al. surveyed a sample of 259 students from Greek organizations at university in the Southwestern United States. The survey questions measured the different aspects of the TRA model: behavioral beliefs, outcome evaluations, attitude toward the behavior, normative beliefs, motivation to comply, subjective norms, and the consequence endogenous variable. The questions asked respondents to rate their responses on various 7 point scales. "Participants in the study responded to one of three scenarios, varying in level of severity, describing a hazing situation occurring in their fraternity or sorority". In line with the theory, the researchers wanted to identify if attitudes held about hazing, dangerous activity, and group affiliation, along with subjective norms about whistle-blowing (reactions by others, consequences of reporting the action, isolation from the group) would influence whether or not an individual would go through with reporting a hazing incident. The results of the study found that individuals were more likely to report, or whistle-blow, on hazing incidents that were more severe or harmful to individuals. Simultaneously, individuals were also concerned about the perceptions of others' attitudes towards them and the consequences they may face if they reported hazing incidents.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: TRA can be applied to the field of public relations and marketing by applying the basics of the theory to campaigns. A few examples of this is using it in a hotel marketing strategy and how likely customers are to come back to the hotel based on behaviors. Brands and companies can use this theory to see what consumers are going to buy and how to create materials for campaigns based on this information. Other researchers investigated the consumers’ motivation and extended TRA model.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: TRA is used to examine the communication behavior in corporations. One of the behaviors TRA helped characterize is knowledge sharing (KS) in companies. In the study conducted by Ho, Hsu, and Oh, they proposed two models to construct KS process by introducing TRA and game theory (GT). One model captures personal psychological feelings (attitudes and subjective norms), the other model not only captures personal feelings but also takes other people's decisions into consideration. By comparing the two models, researchers found that the model based on TRA has a higher predictive accuracy than the model based on TRA and GT. They concluded that employees "have a high probability of not analyzing the decisions of others", and whether taking other colleague's decision into account has a great impact on people's KS behavioral intention. It is indicated that "the more indirect decision-makers there are in organizations, the less effective is KS". To encourage KS, company managers should avoid including indirect decision-makers in the projects.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: Coupon usage has also been studied through TRA framework by researchers interested in consumer and marketer behavior. In 1984, Terence Shimp and Alican Kavas applied this theory to coupon usage behavior, with the research premise that "coupon usage is rational, systematic, and thoughtful behavior" in contrast with other applications of the theory to more dangerous types of behavior.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: TRA serves as a useful model because it can help examine whether "consumers' intentions to use coupons are determined by their attitudes and perceptions of whether important others think one should or should not expend the effort to clip, save, and use coupons". The consumer's behavior intentions are influenced by their personal beliefs about coupon usage, meaning whether or not they think saving money is important and are willing to spend the time clipping coupons. These potential beliefs also influenced the coupon user's thoughts about what others think about their usage of coupons. Together, the coupon user will use their own beliefs and the opinions of others to form an overall attitude towards coupon usage. To approach this study, Shimp and Alican surveyed 770 households and measured the aspects of the TRA model in terms of the participant's responses. The received responses indicated that consumers' norms are "partially determined by their personal beliefs toward coupon usage, and to an even greater extend, that attitudes are influenced by internalizations of others' beliefs". Positive attitudes towards this behavior are influenced by an individual's perceptions that their partners will be satisfied by their time spent and efforts made to save money.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: TRA has been applied to redefine brand loyalty. According to TRA, the antecedents of purchase behavior are attitudes towards the purchase and subjective norm. In 1998, Ha conducted a study to investigate the relationships among several antecedents of unit brand loyalty (UBL) by introducing TRA. Consumers are brand loyal when both attitude and behavior are favorable. In his study, Ha developed a table indicating 8 combinations of customers' brand loyalty based on their loyalty on 3 variables – attitude towards the behavior, subjective norm, and purchase behavior is loyal. According to Ha, marketing managers should not be discouraged by a temporary disloyalty and need to strive for grabbing brand loyalty when customers are showing loyalty to two of the three variables, but they need to rediagnose their customers' brand loyalty when customers are showing loyalty to only one of them. The main focus should be pointed at either enhancing the consumer's attitude toward their brand or adjusting their brand to the social norms. New research investigated norms in social media, contributing to TRA from a more updating perspective.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: TRA has also been used to study consumer attitudes towards renewable energy. In 2000, Bang, et al. found that people who cared about environmental issues like pollution were more willing to spend more for renewable energy. Similarly, a 2008 study of Swedish consumers by Hansla et al. showed that those who with a positive view of renewable energy were more willing to spend money on sustainable energy for their homes. These studies are evidence that the emotional response people have towards a topic affects their attitude, which in turn affects their behavioral intent. These studies also provide examples for how the TRA is used to market goods that might not make the most sense from a strictly economic perspective. Gotch and Hall examined children's nature-related behaviors through TRA approach.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: In addition, Mishara et al.'s research proved there is a positively relation between behavioral intention and actual behavior in green information technology (GIT) acceptance. Those professionals with positive intentions towards GIT tend to exploit GIT into practice.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: TRA has been frequently used as a framework and predictive mechanism of applied research on sexual behavior, especially in prevention of sexually transmitted disease such as HIV. In 2001, Albarracín, Johnson, Fishbein, and Muellerleile applied theory of reasoned action (TRA) and theory of planned behavior (TPB) into studying how well the theories predict condom use. To be consistent with TRA, the authors synthesized 96 data sets (N = 22,594), and associate every component in condom use with certain weight. Their study indicates that TRA and TPB are highly successful predictors of condom use. According to their discussion, "people are more likely to use condoms if they have previously formed the corresponding intentions. These intentions to use condoms appear to derive from attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. These attitudes and norms, in turn, appear to derive from outcome and normative beliefs. Nevertheless, whether behavior was assessed retrospectively or prospectively was an important moderator that influenced the magnitude of the associations between theoretically important variables."


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: In 2011, W.M. Doswell, Braxter, Cha, and Kim examined sexual behavior in African American teenage girls and applied the theory as a framework for understanding this behavior. TRA can explain these behaviors in that teens' behavioral intentions to engage in early sexual behavior are influenced by their pre-existing attitudes and subjective norms of their peers. Attitudes in this context are favorable or unfavorable dispositions towards teenage sexual behavior. Subjective norms are the perceived social pressure teenagers feel from their friends, classmates, and other peer groups to engage in sexual behavior. As a framework, the TRA suggests that adolescents will participate in early behavior because of their own attitudes towards the behavior and the subjective norms of their peers. In this case, intention is the willful plan to perform early sexual behavior. Findings from the student showed that the TRA was supportive in predicting early sexual behavior among African American teenage girls. Attitudes towards sex and subjective norms both correlated with intentions to participate in early sexual behavior in the study's sample.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: A 2011 study examining pediatricians' behaviors surrounding the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine found that TRA predicted the pediatricians would encourage parents to get their daughters vaccinated. Roberto, Krieger, Katz, Goei, and Jain discovered that the norms surrounding this topic were more important in predicting behavior than perceived behavioral control.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: The public health community, interested in reducing rising obesity rates, has used TRA to study people's exercise behavior. A 1981 study by Bentler and Speckart revealed that intent to exercise was determined by a person's attitude toward exercise, as predicted by TRA. In a broader literature review on the study of exercise using TRA and TPB, it was determined that behavioral intent to exercise is better framed by TRA than TPB because perceived behavioral control did not have a significant effect on the intent to exercise.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: According to Fishbein's and Ajzen's original (1967) formulation of TRA, a behavioral intention measure will predict the performance of any voluntary act, unless intent changes prior to performance or unless the intention measure does not correspond to the behavioral criterion in terms of action, target, context, time-frame and/or specificity. The model of TRA has been challenged by studies determined to examine its limitation and inadequacy.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: The major problem of TRA is pointed out to be the ignorance of the connections between individuals, both the interpersonal and social relations in which they act, and the broader social structures which govern social practice. Although TRA recognizes the importance of social norms, strategies are limited to a consideration of individual perceptions of these social phenomena. An individual's belief, attitudes and understandings are constituted activity; therefore the distinction of the two factors is ambiguous. In 1972, Schwartz and Tessler noted that there are other major and subjective determinants of intentions at play that go beyond attitudes toward the behavior and subjective norms. Namely, they propose that one's sense of right and wrongs, as well as one's beliefs surrounding moral obligation may also impact one's intention. This value system is internalized independently from Fishbein and Ajzen's subjective norms. Furthermore, social change may be generational rather than the sum of individual change. TRA fails to capture and oversimplifies the social processes of change and the social nature of the change itself: a model in which people collectively appropriate and construct new meanings and practice.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: Additionally, the habituation of past behavior also tends to reduce the impact that intention has on behavior as the habit increases. Gradually, the performance of the behavior become less of a rational, initiative behavior and more of a learned response. In addition, intention appears to have a direct effect on behavior in the short term only. Besides, the analysis of the conceptual basis also raises concerns. It is criticized that the model does not enable the generation of hypothesis because of their ambiguity. The model focuses on analytic truth rather than synthetic one, therefore the conclusions resulting from those applications are often true by definition rather than by observation which makes the model unfalsifiable. The strengths of attitudes toward a behavior (social/personal) and subjective norms also vary cross-culturally while the process by which the behavior engaged remains the same. An example of this is shown in a cross-cultural study on fast food choices, where people from Western cultures were found to be more influenced by their prior choice of restaurant than people from Eastern cultures. This would suggest that people from different cultures weight subjective norms and existing attitudes differently. A closer examination of the cross-cultural communication process will benefit and complete the understanding of TRA.


title: Theory of reasoned action

text: According to Jaccard James, three directions are waiting for further research in TRA. The first one is per-individual level. The second area is a split-second situations, namely, instant decision-making. The third one is multioption contexts. In other words, how people perform when facing multiple alternatives should be stressed in the future study.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (; 3 November 1801 – 23 September 1835) was a Sicilian opera composer, who was known for his long-flowing melodic lines for which he was named "the Swan of Catania".


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: Many years later, in 1898, Giuseppe Verdi "praised the broad curves of Bellini's melody: 'there are extremely long melodies as no-one else had ever made before'."


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: A large amount of what is known about Bellini's life and his activities comes from surviving letters—except for a short period—which were written over his lifetime to his friend Francesco Florimo, whom he had met as a fellow student in Naples and with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. Other sources of information come from correspondence saved by other friends and business acquaintances.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: Bellini was the quintessential composer of the Italian "bel canto" era of the early 19th century, and his work has been summed up by the London critic Tim Ashley as:


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: ... also hugely influential, as much admired by other composers as he was by the public. Verdi raved about his "long, long, long melodies such as no one before had written." Wagner, who rarely liked anyone but himself, was spellbound by Bellini's almost uncanny ability to match music with text and psychology. Liszt and Chopin professed themselves fans. Of the 19th-century giants, only Berlioz demurred. Those musicologists who consider Bellini to be merely a melancholic tunesmith are now in the minority.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: In considering which of his operas can be seen to be his greatest successes over the almost two hundred years since his death, "Il pirata" laid much of the groundwork in 1827, achieving very early recognition in comparison to Donizetti's having written thirty operas before his major 1830 triumph with "Anna Bolena". Both "I Capuleti e i Montecchi" at La Fenice in 1830 and "La sonnambula" in Milan in 1831 reached new triumphal heights, although initially "Norma", given at La Scala in 1831 did not fare as well until later performances elsewhere. "The genuine triumph" of "I puritani" in January 1835 in Paris capped a significant career. Certainly, "Il pirata", "Capuleti", "La sonnambula", "Norma", and "I puritani" are regularly performed today.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: After his initial success in Naples, most of the rest of his short life was spent outside of both Sicily and Naples, those years being followed with his living and composing in Milan and Northern Italy, and—after a visit to London—then came his final masterpiece in Paris, "I puritani". Only nine months later, Bellini died in Puteaux, France at the age of 33.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: Born in Catania, at the time part of the Kingdom of Sicily, the eldest of seven children in the family, he became a child prodigy within a highly musical family. His grandfather, Vincenzo Tobia Bellini, had studied at the conservatory in Naples and, in Catania from 1767 forward, had been an organist and teacher, as had Vincenzo's father, Rosario.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: An anonymous twelve-page hand-written history, held in Catania's Museo Civico Belliniano, states that he could sing an aria by Valentino Fioravanti at eighteen months, that he began studying music theory at two years of age and the piano at three. By the age of five, he could apparently play "marvelously". The document states that Bellini's first five pieces were composed when he was just six years old and "at seven he was taught Latin, modern languages, rhetoric, and philosophy". Bellini's biographer Herbert Weinstock regards some of these accounts as no more than myths, not being supported from other, more reliable sources. Additionally, he makes the point in regard to Bellini's apparent knowledge of languages and philosophy: "Bellini never became a well-educated man".


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: One critic, Stellios Galatopoulos, deliberates the "facts" presented in the précis, but also provides a reliable source for these compositions, Galatopoulos expresses some skepticism regarding the young Bellini's child prodigy status.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: After 1816, Bellini began living with his grandfather, from whom he received his first music lessons. Soon after, the young composer began to write compositions. Among them were the nine "Versetti da cantarsi il Venerdi Santo", eight of which were based on texts by Metastasio.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: By 1818 Bellini had independently completed several additional orchestral pieces and at least two settings of the Mass Ordinary: one in D Major, the other in G Major, both of which survive and have been commercially recorded.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: He was ready for further study. For well-off students, this would include moving to Naples. While his family wasn't wealthy enough to support that lifestyle, Bellini's growing reputation could not be overlooked. His break came when Stefano Notabartolo, the duca di San Martino e Montalbo and his duchess, became the new intendente of the province of Catania. They encouraged the young man to petition the city fathers for a stipend to support his musical studies. This was successfully achieved in May 1819 with unanimous agreement for a four-year pension to allow him to study at the Real Collegio di Musica di San Sebastiano in Naples. Thus, he left Catania in July carrying letters of introduction to several powerful individuals, including Giovanni Carafa who was the "intendente" of the Real Collegio as well as being in charge of the city's royal theatres. The young Bellini was to live in Naples for the following eight years.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: The Conservatorio di San Sebastiano (as it had been named when the original Real Collegio di Musica, established in 1806 and then renamed as such in 1808) had moved to more spacious facilities close to the church of Gesù Novo and the building formerly occupied by the nuns of San Sabastiano, was run by the government and there, students, who wore a semi-military uniform, were obliged to live under a tight daily regimen of classes in principal subjects, in singing and instrumental coaching, plus basic education. Their days were long, going from early morning mass at 5:15 am to finally ending by 10 pm. Although beyond the normal age for admission, Bellini had submitted ten pieces of music for consideration; these clearly demonstrated his talent, although he did need to do remedial work to correct some of his faulty technique.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: The focus of study was on the masters of the Neapolitan school and the orchestral works of Haydn and Mozart, with the emphasis put upon the Italian classical era composers such as Pergolesi and Paisiello, rather than the "modern-day" approaches of composers such as Rossini. The young student's first teacher was Giovanni Furno, with whom "he studied exercises in harmony and accompaniment"; another, from whom he learned counterpoint, was the composer of over 50 operas, Giacomo Tritto, but whom he found to be "old fashioned and doctrinaire". However, the artistic director of the school was the opera composer, Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: By 1822/23, Bellini had become a member of a class which he taught: the older man appears to have recognised Bellini's potential and treated his student like a son, giving him some firm advice:


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: If your compositions "sing", your music will most certainly please. ... Therefore, if you train your heart to give you melody and then you set it forth as simply as possible, your success will be assured. You will become a composer. Otherwise, you will end up being a good organist in some village.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: It was during these early years at the Collegio that Bellini met Francesco Florimo with whom he had a lifetime of correspondence. Other fellow students—who were to become opera composers—included Francesco Stabile and the Ricci brothers—Luigi and Federico—as well as Saverio Mercadante who, by this time, was a graduate student.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: Another person to whom the young student/composer was introduced was Gaetano Donizetti whose ninth opera—which had been a great success in Rome—was given at the Teatro di San Carlo. About 50 years later, Florimo gave an account of the meeting of the two men: "Carlo Conti [one of Bellini's tutors] said to Bellini and me, "Go and hear Donizetti's "La zingara", for which my admiration increases at every performance." After hearing the opera, Bellini acquired the score, convinced Conti to introduce him, and [Florimo] reports that Bellini's reaction was that he was "a truly beautiful, big man, and his noble countenance—sweet, but at the same time majestic—arouses affection as well as respect."


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: Increasingly, Bellini did better and better in his studies: in January 1820 he passed his examinations in theory, and was successful enough to gain an annual scholarship, which meant that his stipend from Catania could be used to help his family. In the following January he was equally successful and, to fulfill his obligations to write music for Catania – a condition of his scholarship – he sent a "Messa di Gloria" in A Minor for soloists, choir and orchestra, which was performed the following October.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: Besides this melodious work, his output from these study years in Naples included two other settings of the Mass: a full Ordinary in E Minor and a second full Ordinary in G Minor, both of which probably date from 1823. There are two settings of the "Salve Regina" (one in A Major for choir and orchestra, the other in F Minor for solo voice and piano), but these are less accomplished and may date from the first year of study after leaving Catania, 1820. His brief two-movement Oboe Concerto in E-flat from 1823 also survives and has been recorded by no less than the Berlin Philharmonic.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: Bellini's involvement in Zingarelli's class took place over the 1822/23 school year. By January 1824, after passing examinations in which he did well, he attained the title "primo maestrino", requiring him to tutor younger students and allowing him a room of his own in the "collegio" and visits to the Teatro di San Carlo on Thursdays and Sundays, where he saw his first opera by Rossini, "Semiramide". While Weinstock gives an account of how he was "clearly captivated by the music of Rossini [and] put Rossini on a pedestal", he relates that, returning from "Semiramide" Bellini was unusually quiet and then "suddenly exclaimed to his companions, 'Do you know what I think? After "Semiramide", it's futile for us to try and achieve anything!'"


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: But a tougher challenge confronted the young composer: how to win the hand of young Maddalena Fumarolis, whom he had met as a guest in her home and to whom he had become music tutor. As their affair became obvious to her parents, they were forbidden to see each other. Bellini was determined to obtain the parents' permission for them to marry, and some writers regard this as the propelling reason for his writing his first opera.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: The impetus to write this opera came about in late summer of 1824, when his "primo maestrino" status at the conservatory resulted in an assignment to compose an opera for presentation in the institute's "teatrino". This became "Adelson e Salvini", an "opera semi-seria" (half-serious) to a libretto by the Neapolitan Andrea Leone Tottola, who had written the one for Donizetti's "La zingara". "Adelson" was first given sometime between mid-January and mid-March 1825, and featured an all-male cast of fellow students. It proved to be so popular among the student body that it was performed every Sunday for a year.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: With that achievement behind him, it is believed that the young Bellini, who had been away from home for six years, set out for Catania to visit his family. However, some sources attribute the visit to 1824, others to 1825. However, it is known that he was back in Naples by the summer or early autumn of 1825 in order to fulfill a contract to write an opera for the San Carlo or one of the other royal theatres, the Teatro Fondo.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: Following the presentation of "Adelson e Salvini" and while he was in Milan, Bellini—requesting help from Florimo—began to make some revisions, expanding the opera to two acts in the hope that it might be given stagings by Domenico Barbaja, the Intendant at the Teato di San Carlo since 1809. But little is known about exactly how much Bellini or Florimo contributed to the revisions, and Weinstock asserts that no performances were ever given after 1825, but in March 1829, we find Bellini writing to Florimo that "I have written you the changes that you should make in "Adelson" ".


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: In the summer or early autumn of 1825 Bellini began work on what was to become his first professionally produced opera. A contract between the Conservatory and the royal theatres obliged the Conservatory—when it nominated a sufficiently talented student—to require that student to write a cantata or one-act opera to be presented on a gala evening in one of the theatres. After Zingarelli used his influence to secure this honour for his promising student, Bellini was able to obtain agreement that he could write a full-length opera and, furthermore, that the libretto did not have to be written by Tottola, the theatres' official dramatic poet. However, as Intendant of the San Carlo, "Barbaja was the chief beneficiary: 'With a small investment he found among those young men the one who would lead him to large profits'" notes Florimo.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: The young composer chose Domenico Gilardoni, a young writer who then prepared his first libretto, which he named "Bianca e Fernando", based on an 1820 play, "Bianca e Fernando alla tomba di Carlo IV, Duca d'Agrigento" and set in Sicily.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: However, the title "Bianca e Fernando" had to be changed, because Ferdinando was the name of the heir to the throne, and no form of it could be used on a royal stage. After some delays caused by King Francesco I forcing postponement, the opera—now named "Bianca e Gernando"—was given its premiere performance at the Teatro di San Carlo on 30 May 1826, Prince Ferdinando's name day.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: It was very successful, helped by the approval of the King, who broke the custom of there being no applause at a performance attended by royalty. It was also attended by Donizetti who enthusiastically wrote to Simon Mayr: "It is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, especially as it is his first opera." Bellini's music was highly regarded, with the "Giornale delle Due Sicilie" on 13 June noting that "[several of the arias and duets] are some of the most laudable pieces of new music heard in recent times at the [San Carlo]." However, there were reservations about Gilardoni's contribution.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: Within nine months, in February/March 1827, Domenico Barbaja offered Bellini a commission for an opera to be presented in the autumn of 1827 at La Scala in Milan, of which between 1821 and 1832, Barbaja was also part of the management.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: Bellini spent 1827 to 1833 mostly in Milan, never holding any official position within an opera company and living solely from the income produced from his compositions, for which he was able to ask higher than usual fees.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: Upon his arrival, he met Antonio Villa of La Scala and composer Saverio Mercadante whose new opera, "Il Montanaro" was in rehearsal. The latter introduced him to Francesco and Marianna Pollini (an older couple, the husband a retired professor of piano, the wife a better-than-amateur musician) who immediately took the young man under their wing.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: In addition, Bellini was introduced to the librettist Felice Romani, who proposed the subject of the composer’s first project, "Il pirata", to which the young man willingly agreed especially when he realised that the story "provided several passionate and dramatic situations.. [and]..that such Romantic characters were then an innovation on the operatic stage." A strong professional relationship with Romani began from that time; he became Bellini’s primary creative partner, providing the libretti for six of Bellini’s operas which followed, in addition to about 100 libretti written for the major composers of the day, up to and including Verdi. As has been observed, "no other Italian opera composer of the time showed such an attachment to a single librettist" and although Romani was known to treat composers poorly, he evidently had great respect for Bellini, even acceding to his requests for revisions. For his part, Bellini admired "the sonorous and elegance of the poet's verses"


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: While in Milan, "[Bellini] quickly gained an entrée into higher social circles", although he also stayed for months at a time with friends, the Cantù and the Turina families. It was with Giuditta Turina that he began an affair in 1828 during the premiere performances of "Bianca e Fernando" in Genoa.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: The four years in Northern Italy between 1827 and 1831 produced four great masterpieces, "Il pirata", "I Capuleti e i Montecchi", "La sonnambula", and "Norma", along with a revival and a setback.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: The collaboration with Romani on "Il pirata" began in May 1827 and, by August, the music was being written. By then, the composer was aware that he was to write music for his favourite tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini and the soprano was to be Henriette Méric-Lalande. Both singers had starred in "Bianca" in the original 1826 production. The strong cast also included Antonio Tamburini, a major bass-baritone of the time. But rehearsals did not progress without some difficulties, as both Weinstock and Galatopoulos recount: it appears that Bellini found Rubini, while singing beautifully, to be lacking expressiveness: he was urged to "throw yourself with all your soul into the character you are representing" and to use [your] body, "to accompany your singing with gestures", as well as to act with [your] voice. It appears that Bellini's exhortations bore fruit, based on his own account of the audience's reactions to the first performance, as well as the reaction of the "Gazzetta privilegiata di Milano" of 2 December which noted that this opera "introduced us to Rubini's dual personality as a singer and actor". The reviewer continued to declare that this duality had never been expressed in other operas in which he had performed.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: The premiere, given on 17 October 1827, was "an immediate and then an increasing, success. By Sunday, December 2, when the season ended, it had been sung to fifteen full houses". For Rubini, "it marked the defining performance for the tenor", and the newspaper reviews which followed all agreed with the composer's own assessment.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: After its Milanese debut, the opera received very successful performances in Vienna in February 1828 and also in Naples three months later. Both productions starred Rubini, Tamburini, and—in the role of Imogene—Rubini's wife, Adelaide Comelli-Rubini, about whom Bellini had initial misgivings, although it appears that she acquitted herself very well. By this time, Bellini had begun to achieve international fame.


title: Vincenzo Bellini

text: After "Il pirata", Bellini remained in Milan with the hope of securing another commission. One came from Genoa via Bartolomeo Merelli on 13 January 1828 for a new opera for presentation on 7 April. However, without knowing which singers would be engaged, he was unwilling to commit at that time, but remained in hope of something definite from La Scala for the autumn. When no alternatives appeared, he accepted Genoa's offer in February, but it was then too late to write anything new. He immediately proposed a revival and re-working of "Bianca e Gernando", this time with the original title "Bianca e Fernando", there being no royal by the name of Fernando in the House of Savoy. Romani wrote to Florimo in Naples and told him that he had taken on the re-construction of the libretto, with the result that "out of the whole of "Bianca", the only pieces entirely unchanged are the big duet and the "romanza"; everything else is altered, and about half of it is new", Bellini then re-arranged the music to suit the singers' voices, now knowing that the Bianca was to be Adelaide Tosi and the Fernando to be Giovanni David.