I Capuleti e i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Montagues) is an Italian opera (tragedia lirica) in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini. The libretto by Felice Romani was a reworking of the story of Romeo and Juliet for an opera by Nicola Vaccai called Giulietta e Romeo and based on the play of the same name by Luigi Scevola written in 1818, thus an Italian source rather than taken directly from William Shakespeare.
Bellini was persuaded to write the opera for the 1830 Carnival season at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, with only a month and a half available for composition. He succeeded by appropriating a large amount of music previously written for his unsuccessful opera Zaira.
The first performance of I Capuleti e i Montecchi took place on 11 March 1830.
Composition history
After Zaira
Following the poor reception which Zaira received in Parma, Bellini returned to Milan by the end of June 1829 with no contract for another opera in sight. Giovanni Pacini, another Catanese composer, was still in Milan after the well-received premiere of his Il Talismano, and he received offers to compose an opera for both Turin and Venice for the following Carnival season. He accepted both offers, but the La Fenice impresario, Alessandro Lanari, included a proviso that if he were to be unable to fulfill the Venice contract, then it would be transferred to Bellini.
A firm offer of a contract for a new opera for Venice appeared in the autumn, a contract which also included a provision that Il pirata would also be given during the 1830 Carnival season. By mid-December Bellini was in Venice where he heard the same singers who were to perform in Pirata: they were Giuditta Grisi, the tenor Lorenzo Bonfigli, and Giulio Pellegrini.
Bellini in Venice
With rehearsals for Pirata underway in late December, Bellini was given notice by Lanari that it was doubtful whether Pacini would be present in time to stage an opera and that a contract was to be prepared for Bellini to provide a new opera but with the proviso that it would only become effective on 14 January. Accepting the offer on 5 January, Bellini stated that he would set Romani's libretto for Giulietta Capellio, that he required 45 days between receipt of the libretto and the first performance, and that he would accept 325 napoleoni d'oro (about 8,000 lire).
The tentative contract deadline was extended until 20 January, but by that date Romani was in Venice, having already re-worked much of his earlier libretto which he had written for Nicola Vaccai's 1825 opera, Giulietta e Romeo, the source for which was the play of the same name by Luigi Scevola in 1818. The two men set to work, but with the winter weather in Venice becoming increasingly bad, Bellini fell ill; however, he had to continue to work under great pressure within a now-limited timetable. Eventually, revisions to Romani's libretto were agreed to, a new title was given to the work, and Bellini reviewed his score of Zaira to see how some of the music could be set to the new text, but composing the part of Romeo for Grisi. He also took Giulietta's "Oh quante volte" and Nelly's romanza from Adelson e Salvini. The Giulietta was to be sung by Rosalbina Caradori-Allan.
Performance history
19th century
At the premiere of I Capuleti e i Montecchi on 11 March 1830 success for Bellini returned. Weinstock describes the premiere as "an unclouded and immediate success" but it was only able to be performed eight times before the La Fenice season closed on 21 March. A local newspaper, I Teatri, reported that "all things considered, this opera by Bellini has aroused as much enthusiasm in Venice as La straniera aroused in Milan from the first evening on".
By this time, Bellini knew that he had achieved fame: writing on 28 March, he stated that: "My style is now heard in the most important theatres in the world...and with the greatest enthusiasm." Before leaving Venice, Bellini was offered a contract to produce another new opera for La Fenice for the 1830–31 Carnival season, and—upon his return to Milan—he also found an offer from Genoa for a new opera but proposed for the same time period, an offer he was forced to reject.
Later that year, Bellini prepared a version of Capuleti for La Scala which was given on 26 December, lowering Giulietta's part for the mezzo-soprano Amalia Schütz Oldosi.