Opera

I Puritani

0 upcoming performances in New York

Vincenzo Bellini’s *I Puritani* (1835) is a bel canto opera set against the English Civil War, drawn from a French stage drama rather than the Walter Scott novel it is sometimes linked to. It was reshaped from two acts into three before its first performance, reflecting the practical, collaborative world of 1830s opera-making. In New York, the work entered the repertory through Italian-opera culture centered on houses like the old Academy of Music and later the Metropolitan Opera, where its vocal demands kept it a periodic event. Bellini’s long melodic arcs make private emotion feel historically exposed.