The Unbeautiful Bellini
PETTINGELL, PHOEBE
The Unbeautiful Bellini Vincenzo Bellini: His Life and His Operas By Herbert Weinstock Knopf. 554 pp. $15.00. Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell "There was something vague, an absence of character...
...Yet for scholarship, cogent analysis and fascinating detail, this book is not only well worth having but a fitting memorial to a talented biographer...
...The late Herbert Weinstock had previously completed biographies of the other two, Gioacchino Rossini (of II Barbiere di Seviglia fame) and Gaetano Donizetti (best known for Lucia di Lammermoor), but was somewhat reluctant to create a trilogy: "Although I intensely admired Bellini the composer of operas (I judge Norma to be the outstanding achievement of pre-Verdi romantic opera), I already knew that Bellini the man was in many ways unattractive-and I therefore wondered not only if I could face spending some years with him, but also if I could deal with him fairly...
...when Heine jokingly remarked that such a genius would die young, Bellini called him a jettatore (possessor of the evil eye) and avoided him...
...he was terribly selfish in personal relationships, but inspired love in others...
...All his life he inclined to paranoia, and always believed that Donizetti was out to wreck his career, though the amiable Donizetti believed him to be quite friendly...
...True, a figure as unsympathetic as Bellini creates problems for his biographer, and in trying to be fair Weinstock has included inapposite material that needlessly blurs any image of the man...
...That expression of pain took the place of a spirit that was missing from [his] face...
...Two others do not deserve the neglect they have suffered...
...The whole man looked like a sigh in dancing pumps...
...And his gait was so virginal, so elegiac, so ethereal...
...Another friendship, with his excellent librettist, Felice Romani, ended in bitterness after Bellini jealously accused him of being responsible for the failure of one of his operas...
...While Rossini and Donizetti wrote copiously (30 and 70 operas respectively), often borrowing extensively from their earlier works when they were in a hurry, Bellini worked carefully and, for his time, slowly...
...he has also strangely de-emphasized other incidents, notably the Guidetta Turina affair...
...So Heinrich Heine portrayed Vincenzo Bellini when the two men met in Paris in 1835, and over the years that shrewd caricature has remained the most apt description of the Sicilian musician...
...In addition there are several interesting curiosities, including the attractive I Capuleti ed I Montecchi, a free adaptation of Romeo and Juliet which bothered Hector Berlioz and many other lovers of Shakespeare because Romeo is sung by a woman...
...Florimo's devotion won him a constant, if unequal, friendship, but Bellini's relations with others were often disasters...
...Bellini had no intention of taking her on as a full-time responsibility, despite the fact that her husband had abandoned her...
...This paranoia extended to superstitious fear...
...His hair was combed in such a romantic, melancholy way, he carried his little Spanish cane in such an idyllic manner, that he always reminded me of one of the young shepherds who simper about coyly in our pastoral plays, with little pastel jackets . . . and beribboned crooks...
...The common belief that he never borrowed is erroneous, Weinstock demonstrates, but he did it sparingly...
...Although Vincenzo Bellini: His Life and His Operas is not a popular biography, it ought to be in the library of all who care about music...
...Ironically, the composer died soon afterward...
...Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell "There was something vague, an absence of character in his features, something milky...
...Weinstock quotes a pathetic and melodramatic letter from Guidetta to Florimo regarding Bellini's inhuman treatment: "He answered [my friends] by defaming my reputation so as to excuse his behavior, and took not the slightest interest in my condition...
...and he died at the height of his powers, mourned by the musical world...
...Bellini would set such pleas to the most poignant music in his operas, but he was immune to Guidetta's sufferings...
...After ardently wooing a young Neopolitan lady whose parents thought him an unsuitable match, he lost interest in her just at the moment that all obstacles to their marriage seemed to have been removed...
...Yet for all his personal shortcomings, his operas are worthy of serious attention...
...they are only revived for outstanding coloratura singers like Joan Sutherland or Maria Callas (to whom this book is dedicated...
...Wein-stock's analysis of each of the operas is particularly excellent, and will enrich every degree of familiarity with them...
...His career was meteoric, most of his operas were wildly successful...
...Immensely aided by Romani's libretti and by the famous singers who performed at the premiers, eight of his ten operas were successes in his lifetime, and two remain in the repertoire today: the tragic Norma, and a pastorale, La Sonnambula...
...He says his career avant tout, and that's the way he speaks to a woman who has sacrificed everything for him...
...to a woman who for five years has loved him with the ardor and purity with which the angels adore the Divinity...
...Indeed, of the three great bel canto opera composers, Bellini is the least written about...
...I am convinced that he doesn't believe it in his heart, but does so in appearance only because it suits him to do so and because the stories fit his plans...
...A more passionate relationship, with a married woman, Guidetta Turina, ended when some compromising letters from Bellini fell into her husband's hands...
...and who, in spite of his cruel and indelicate behavior, loves him still...
...Unable to like the composer, Weinstock has nevertheless managed to produce a remarkable work of scholarship...
...and sometimes a sour-sweet expression of sorrow would appear on that milk-face...
...Bellini's life is hardly atypical of the Romantic era in which he lived (1801-35...
Vol. 55 • June 1972 • No. 12
