SUBMITTED BY ARTSPRING
On New Year’s Eve, the Metropolitan Opera raised the curtain on its first new production of Vincenzo Bellini’s I Puritani in nearly 50 years. Salt Spring opera lovers will experience this historic revival on Saturday, Jan. 10, when the production comes to ArtSpring as part of the Met’s Live in HD series.
Produced by Charles Edwards in his Met directorial debut, this production harnesses the power of technical vocal mastery and raw, emotional theatre. Though I Puritani is a cornerstone of the bel canto repertoire, known for highwire vocal stunts and long, elegant verses, Edwards refuses to treat the work as a mere concert in costume. Instead, he leverages the characters’ intense strife and tenuous sanity to submerge audiences in Bellini’s world.
During the English Civil War between the Puritans and the Royalists, Elvira, the heartbroken heroine, paints portrait after portrait of the queen she believes stole her lover. Her wedding dress becomes tattered and stained as she comes ungrounded, her madness making her an uncontainable transgression against the austere Puritan world around her. As Edwards says in The MET’s article titled The War Within, “For me, Elvira doesn’t go mad. She just acts out everything that is inside her — her true personality comes out. And in this society, for someone to behave in such a liberated way leads everyone to believe something must be wrong with her.”
Of course, that’s not to say that vocals take a back seat. Bellini wrote I Puritani for four of his time’s best singers, a group that delivered so exceptionally that they were forever known as the Puritani Quartet. Edwards’ cast upholds this tradition of otherworldly vocal mastery, perfectly executing the soaring highs and plunging lows that made the 1835 Paris premiere a sensation. Soprano Lisette Oropesa stuns as Elvira, a role she first sang in Naples’ Teatro di San Carlo in 2022. Seasoned bel canto tenor Lawrence Brownlee plays Elvira’s Royalist lover Arturo. Baritone Artur Ruciński sings Elvira’s betrothed Riccardo, and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn completes the quartet as Elvira’s ally, her uncle Giorgio.
Edwards’ extensive background as a set designer shines in this production’s visual language. He emphasizes the austerity of Puritan England, a drab, controlled environment against which the queen’s opulence and Elvira’s madness stand in stark contrast. The set evolves as the show (and the war) goes on, with the main setting, a Puritan meeting house, progressively falling into bullet-holed ruin.
I Puritani is Bellini’s final work, premiering at Paris’ Théâtre Italien nine months before his death. Bellini made his name as a master of the bel canto style and possessed both a deep understanding of the human voice and the expertise to push it to artistic transcendence. He was also an intense and dedicated composer. In a letter to I Puritani’s librettist, Italian political exile Carlo Pepoli, he wrote “Carve into your head in adamantine letters: The opera must draw tears, terrify people, make them die through singing.” The result rocked Paris audiences, closing the theatre’s season with 17 sensational performances.
Showtime this Saturday is 10 a.m. The performance runs around four hours with one intermission. As always, coffee, tea and warm quiche will be served.
Tickets cost $15 for youth, $20 for seniors and $25 for adults and are available through purchase.artspring.ca or the ArtSpring box office.