page_title: Vincenzo Bellini
section_title: Paris: January to September 1835
hierarchical_section_title: Vincenzo Bellini / Paris: January to September 1835
caption_attribution_description: English: Rubini as Arturo in I Puritani, Paris 1835
context_page_description: Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer, who was known for his long-flowing melodic lines for which he was named "the Swan of Catania".
  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'."
  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.
  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:
  ... also hugely influential, as much admired by other composers as he was by the public.
context_section_description: In the immediate aftermath of I puritani 's success, Bellini was awarded two honours: the first by King Louis-Philippe, naming him as chevalier of the Légion d'honneur; the second by King Ferdinand II in Naples, awarding him the cross of the "Order of Francesco I". Bellini then dedicated I puritiani "To the Queen of the French", Queen Marie-Emélie. But from a personal point of view, Bellini expressed his sadness at not having seen Florimo for so long, and there flowed a succession of invitations, then demands that Florimo come to Paris to visit him, but from February to July, Florimo ignored the offers and finally, in a letter to him, Bellini stated: "I'll no longer ask for reasons, and I'll see you when I see you." After that, he attempted to persuade his uncle, Vincenzo Ferlito, to visit, but without success.
  During the final preparations in 1834 for the staging of Puritani and up to its delay into 1835, Bellini had concluded an agreement with Naples to present three operas there—including the re-writing of parts of the music for Malibran—beginning in the following January. All that went by the wayside when the revised score failed to arrive on time, and performances were abandoned and the contract scrapped. Thus, during March, Bellini did nothing, but did attend the final performance of Puritani on 31st. On 1 April, he wrote a very lengthy letter to Ferlito laying out the entire history of his life in Paris to date, as well as reviving the old jealousies about Donizetti and Rossini's so-called "enmity" toward him.  He ended by mentioning that "my future plans are to be able to arrange a contract with the French Grand Opéra and remain in Paris, making it my home for the present.  Additionally, he discusses the prospect of marriage to a young woman who "is not rich, but she has an uncle and aunt who are: if they will give her 200,000 francs, I'll marry her", but remarks that he is in no hurry.
  Throughout May, accounts came to him from London of the success of I puritani and the failure of a revival of Norma (due to the poor performances by both the Adalgisa and Pollione), although later reports of Giulietta Grisi's Norma—in contrast to those of Pasta—were not good either, and Bellini was pleased that it was not Grisi who gave the opera in Paris.  Over the summer, Bellini's general mood was reported to be "dark":  discussion with the Opéra could not proceed until a new director was appointed; "he writes long letters, crowded with projects, ideas, reveries that the hand seems to have trouble restraining"; and, as Weintock concludes, all of these things seem to "inescapably suggest a man deeply disturbed physically, psychologically, or both".
  At one of the literary gatherings which Bellini attended earlier in the year, Bellini met the writer Heinrich Heine. Both men then attended a dinner that summer, at which the writer is reported to have remarked:
  You are a genius, Bellini, but you will pay for your great gift with a premature death. All the great geniuses died very young, like Raphael and like Mozart.
  The rather superstitious Bellini was horrified.  Also, Heine's literary portrait of Bellini, which became part of his unfinished novel Florentinische Nächte (Florentine Nights) published in 1837, emphasized the less-appealing aspects of the composer's personality, summing up a description of him as "a sigh in dancing pumps".
  In his last-known letter to Filippo Santocanale Bellini wrote on 16 August, followed by one to Florimo on 2 September. In the latter, he mentions that "for three days I've been slightly disturbed by a diarrhea, but I am better now, and think that it is over."
caption: Rubini as Arturo in I Puritani, Paris 1835
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