To Our Bel Canto Fans

Dear Bel Canto Fans,

What a year we had in 2024! The revival of Carolina Uccelli’s Anna di Resburgo was a risk (bringing back a forgotten opera always is), but we took it joyously, and it succeeded beyond all expectation. A sold-out house, an “outright triumph” according to The New Yorker, and one of the year’s Twenty Best Classical Performances worldwide according to the New York Times. Not bad for a composer the history books had completely overlooked!

We also carried forward our cycle of Bellini’s operas with I Capuleti e i Montecchi, whose moving finale left very few eyes dry, and this year we continue it with the evergreen La Sonnambula. This is a special project for me. First, because the score is so rarely presented in Bellini’s original version; second, because we have the chance to offer the public some short but delightful unpublished passages derived from the autograph score and some brilliant, hitherto unknown variations by Bellini himself.

But the third reason is the most important. You may have heard that the story is silly or trivial (or even seen the opera presented on that basis). It isn’t. La Sonnambula is a touching, psychologically detailed, endlessly tender and beautiful creation by one of opera’s greatest poet-composer teams. The verses of Felice Romani need attention in parallel with the melodies of Bellini; they didn’t do silly.

And on to Verdi! At Teatro Nuovo, we think of the giants of Bel Canto not as a trio but as a quartet: Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, all born within a 21-year span around the start of the 19th century. History sees Verdi differently, because he lived long and took the tradition to its greatest glories long after the others fell silent—and yet he is part of it. He built on the architecture established by Rossini all the way through his great Shakespearean comedy, Falstaff. There’s no better way to show the connection than his first Shakespearean tragedy, Macbeth, in its original version from 1847.

Verdi’s first decade in the theater is known for blood-and-thunder thrillers like Nabucco, Ernani, and I Due Foscari. He first confronted his most beloved dramatist in that spirit. Many years later, he returned to Macbeth, adding subtleties and smoothing sharp edges. Each version has its own greatness, but the first one is rarely heard—never in modern New York, as far as we know. Coleridge said that watching the actor Edmund Kean (a famous Macbeth on the British stage) was “like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.” Verdi’s first Macbeth is like that!

Both operas, meanwhile, are ripe for transformation through the sonorities of our renowned period-instrument orchestra and our radical embrace of 19th century performing styles. This is the long-term adventure to which Teatro Nuovo is dedicated. “Return to the old, and it will be progress,” as Verdi himself said. Not for nostalgia, not for turning back the clock, but for drawing on the historic roots of our craft as a way to move it forward. That’s the adventure I invite you all to join!

 Arrivederci,