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 a the story of Romeo and Juliet for an opera by Nicola Vaccai called Giulietta e Romeo. This was based on Italian sources rather than taken directly from Shakespeare. (The tomb scene from Vaccai's opera has sometimes been performed with Bellini's opera.)
Bellini was persu...
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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 a the story of Romeo and Juliet for an opera by Nicola Vaccai called Giulietta e Romeo. This was based on Italian sources rather than taken directly from Shakespeare. (The tomb scene from Vaccai's opera has sometimes been performed with Bellini's opera.)
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 was on 11 March 1830.
Behind the libretto stand many Italian, ultimately Renaissance, sources rather than Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Romani rewrote for Bellini the Giulietta e Romeo he had written originally for Vaccai, which drew on a play...
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