Travel tips for opera lovers – Naples and Bellini

Bellini in Naples

The series about historical places of opera art & culture. Get to know exciting excursion and travel ideas for opera lovers. This time: Bellini in Naples.

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Bellini in Naples

Bellini spent eight years in Naples, where the Sicilian studied at the conservatory. Naples flourished at that time as a musical center of Italy with the renowned conservatories and the dazzling impresario Barbaja, who appointed first Rossini, then Donizetti as artistic director of the two Neapolitan theaters San Carlo and Fondo, which he financed with gambling. Besides his studies, from today’s point of view three events connect Bellini with Naples. The first is his friendship with Francesco Florimo, a fellow student and later archivist of the Conservatory, to whom Bellini wrote letters throughout his life, thanks to which we know much about Bellini’s thought processes. Secondly, in 1826 he successfully premiered his first serious opera “Bianca e Fernando” with the dream cast of Lablache and Rubini at the San Carlo, which earned him an engagement in Milan (whose impresario was Barbaja in personal union).

The third story refers to Bellini’s relationship to Maddalena Fumaroli. This story of love for a piano student could have come from one of his operas (the veracity of which is disputed, however): as a student, he taught a piano student named Maddalena Fumaroli and the two fell head over heels in love. Her parents caught wind of this and forbade further meetings with the mouse-poor student. Sighing, Bellini told Maddalena that he would come back and ask her to marry him when he had created ten operas. Soon he was allowed to write his first opera for the Conservatory Theater (“Adelson e Salvini”) and for San Carlo and his fame increased. Eight years and seven operas later, after the triumph of “Sonnambula”, he received a letter from Maddalena that her father had consented to the marriage. Bellini never returned to Maddalena.

Bellini eventually left Naples and shifted his center of life to Milan and later Paris, occasionally returning to Naples for performances. Naples honored Bellini with a beautiful square, which was renamed after him with a monument to the composer.

Destination Bellini Monument

The monument, which stands in Bellini Square, was erected in 1886. Originally, in the niches of the pedestal were the busts of his four opera heroines Norma, Giulietta (“I Capuleti e i Montecchi”), Amina (“La sonnambula”) and Elvira (“I puritani”). Unfortunately, they were stolen many years ago and have never reappeared.

Bellini Monument: