Study Guide
Study Guide Contents
GENERAL INFORMATION
- Beginner's Guide to Opera
- Who's Who At the Opera
- The Lyric Opera House
- BOC Education Programs
- A Bibliography of Selected Readings
- Education Resources
2007-2008 SEASON
2006-2007 SEASON
2005-2006 SEASON
2004-2005 SEASON
2003-2004 SEASON
2002-2003 SEASON
PREVIOUS OPERAS
I Puritani
The Puritans
Opera seria (melodramma seria) in three parts
Music - Vincenzo Bellini
b. 3 November 1801, Catania, Sicily
d. 23 September 1835, Puteaux, Paris
Libretto - Count Carlo Pepoli, after the historical drama Têtes rondes et cavaliers (1833) by Jacques-Arsène Polycarpe François Ancelot and Joseph-Xavier Boniface ("Xavier Saintine"), in turn derived from the novel Old Mortality by Sir Walter Scott (1816)
Composed April 1834-January 1835; revised December 1834-January 1835
Premiere: 25 January 1835, Theatre-Italien, Paris
U.S. Premiere: 22 July 1843, Chestnut St. Theater, Philadelphia
Principal characters:
Elvira (soprano) (el-VEE-rah) - daughter of the Puritan governor-general
Lord Arturo Talbo (tenor) (are-TOO-roh TAL-boh) - her lover, a Royalist
Sir Riccardo Forth (baritone) (ree-CAR-doh) - the Puritan officer to whom Elvira was originally betrothed
Sir Giorgio (bass) (ZHOR-ghee-o) - Elvira's uncle
I Puritani (Ee poo-ree-TAH-nee) takes place in Plymouth, England, during the English Civil War of the 1650s.