Vincenzo Bellini had already made a name for himself far beyond Italy’s borders when the Teatro La Fenice engaged him in January 1830 to produce a new opera for the current carnival season — within just a few weeks. With I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Bellini entered into his artistic prime, demonstrating that he had now found his true personal style.
For this limitless love, Georges Bizet created an equally boundless score featuring a wealth of grandiose melodies: Habanera, Flower and Toreador Song, Seguidilla, the Smuggler's March – all these sonorous masterpieces will find their own echoes in the both wild and gentle landscape of the quarry St. Margarethen, who thus becomes a parable for the most fascinating figure of the opera stage.
