Directing is Àlex Ollé, of the Catalan collective La Fura dels Baus, reunited with the creative team behind his acclaimed production of Oedipe. This new production of Norma is The Royal Opera’s first in nearly thirty years.
But the opera’s dramatic potency rests in its breathtaking ensembles, most strikingly in Norma’s duets with Pollione and Adalgisa, the Act I trio ‘Vanne, sì: mi lascia, indegno’ and the blistering Act II finale.
Norma is perhaps most acclaimed as a vehicle for the lead soprano, and indeed Bellini provides some astonishing vocal fireworks for his title character – most famously ‘Casta diva’, Norma’s Act I hymn to the chaste moon, and Act II’s ‘Dormono entrambi’, as she contemplates the unthinkable act of killing her children. After a muted initial response the opera quickly became popular, and is now a mainstay of the repertory. Last staged at the Liceu on 30 July 2007.Bellini’s bel canto masterpiece Norma had its premiere at La Scala, Milan, on Boxing Day 1831. First performed at the Gran Teatre del Liceu on 16 October 1847. Premiered on 26 September 1831 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Libretto by Felice Romani based on the play by Alexandre Soumet. It first came to the Liceu in 1847, not long after its official opening, and was, in fact, the third opera to be staged there. Though the first performance was a failure, Norma went on to become an established favourite. Norma is a classical heroine, passionate and revengeful, and her dilemma provides the starting point for the most successful work by the last and greatest composer of bel canto. But when she discovers she has a rival, jealousy sets in. In Roman-dominated Gaul, the high priestess Norma has broken her vow of chastity by entering a relationship with the Roman pro-consul Pollione and the birth of their two children has been kept secret. This production, by up-and-coming American stage director Kevin Newbury, stresses the ritual aspects of the drama.
And rightly so, because in Norma Italian Romanticism reached its pinnacle. That is what Richard Wagner said about Vincenzo Bellini’s most famous opera, which he considered the most perfect example of a musical tragedy. If we weep from emotion on hearing it, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Recorded on February 14th and 17th, 2015 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu (Spain)
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