I puritani

I puritani is an Italian opera in three acts by Vincenzo Bellini, first performed in Paris, on January 25, 1835, libretto by Carlo Pepoli, after Jacques Ancelot and Xavier Boniface Saintine's Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers, itself based on Sir Walter Scott's Old Morality. Bellini's last work and one of his greatest triumphs.

Principal characters

• Elvira - soprano
• Arturo - tenor
• Riccardo - baritone
• Giorgio - bass
• Enrichetta - mezzo-soprano
• Bruno - tenor
• Gualtiero - bass

I Puritani Media

• 

  Cabinet card image of Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835). TCS 1.2246, Harvard Theatre Collection, Harvard University

• 

  Cristina Trivulzio Belgiojoso 1832, by Francesco Hayez (detail)

• 

  In 1829 the Théâtre-Italien was performing in the first Salle Favart

• 

  Librettist Carlo Pepoli

• 

  Drawing for a cover of I puritani (undated)

• 

  Rubini as Arturo in I puritani, Paris 1835

• 

  Grisi and Lablache in I puritani, King's Theatre, London, 1835

• 

  Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti,1976 performance at the Metropolitan Opera

• 

  Antonio Tamburini sang Riccardo – Lithography by Josef Kriehuber

• 

  An excerpt from "Credeasi, misera", act 3. The notes highlighted (above the high C) are among the highest demanded in tenor operatic repertoire and are usually sung falsetto or altogether transposed.

Reference

• The Complete Dictionary of Opera & Operetta, James Anderson, Wings Books, 1993.