DESCRIPTION:
Leyla Gencer, Beatrice
Juan Oncina, Orombello
Antigone Sgourda, Agnese
Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice di Venezia,
conducted by Vittorio Gui in a live performance (1964)

(IMHO if you want one of the best recordings of this opera....go straight to Vittorio Gui. The finale was not finished in time for the premiere so Beatrice's final aria was borrowed from Bianca e Fernando; Bellini's sketches of a former finale were realized by Gui for a series of revivals from the 1960s. And usually a singers best work is heard live, not in studio recordings...)

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Beatrice di Tenda, with its very literate libretto by Felice Romani, is Bellini's penultimate opera, coming after Norma and before I Puritani. It received its first performance at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice, on 16 March 1833 with Giuditta Pasta in the title role. Since the opera's revival in the 1960s the title role has been assumed by a number of other prominent sopranos: Joan Sutherland, Leyla Gencer, Mirella Freni, June Anderson, Edita Gruberova and Mariella Devia.

The overture and the lyrical trio "Angiol di pace" ("three minutes in heaven"), perhaps, represent both Bellini at his best and at his most inspired.

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"Filippo Maria Visconti succeeded his murdered brother in the Duchy of Milan. Some of his council advised him to marry Beatrice di Tenda, whose worth exceeded his own personal fortune and territorial control, despite that she was twenty years his elder. Once he obtained his new wife's resources, he easily conquered the various rulers of the smaller neighboring domains.
However, despite the wealth, territory, and military strength that she had brought to him, Filippo grew averse to Beatrice, perhaps because of jealousy of her late husband's reputation, or her own political power, or her greater age, or that she bore no children, or his favoring of his mistress, the much younger Agnese del Maino.
Unable to publicly denounce his wife, he effected a scheme common among the nobility of the time, that of adultery. Among those of the Duchess Beatrice's household was a young troubadour and friend, Michele Orombelli, who often entertained the lady with lute and song. To avoid any possibility of an uprising that might try to free the popular Duchess, on August 23, 1418, he had the doors of Milan closed until lunchtime, and had the troubadour, the Duchess, and two of her handmaidens spirited away to the castle of Binasco. In its confines, the captors tortured the prisoners. The handmaidens confessed to having seen the duchess with Orombelli sitting on the bed playing the lute. The torturers forced Orombelli into confession of adultery. Although Beatrice herself received twenty-four lashes, she denied any guilt to her confessor.
A jurist, Gasparino de' Grassi Castiglione, proclaimed Beatrice, the troubadour, and the handmaidens all guilty of adultery or its complicity, and sentenced them to death. Her captors beheaded Beatrice in the courtyard on September 13, 1418, accompanied in death by her two maids and the young troubadour."
Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Lascaris_di_Tenda

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CON TURPE SCONOSCENZA
RICAMBIANDO
LA ILLIBATA FEDE L'ASSECURATO TRONO
FILIPPO MARIA VISCONTI
SPEGNEVA NELLA NOTTE DEL 13 SETTEMBRE 1418
IN QUESTE MURA
L'ONORANDA CONSORTE BEATRICE DI TENDA
L'ORRORE DEL FATTO
FECONDI E RITEMPRI NE' FIGLI D'ITALIA
GLI AFFETTI PIÙ PURI I DOVERI PIÙ SACRI
AUSPICE IL MUNICIPIO
ALCUNI OBLATORI POSERO
IL 13 GIUGNO 1869

(Lapide sul castello di Binasco che stigmatizza l'uxoricidio.)

Chi era Costei? Quando suo marito Facino Cane morì, Filippo Maria Visconti*, che era 20 anni più giovane di lei, la sposò per impadronirsi delle ricchezze dei Cane. Ben presto però fu pretestuosamente accusata ingiustamente di adulterio e decapitata, assieme al presunto amante.

Questa drammatica vicenda venne portata in musica da Vincenzo Bellini. La musica di Bellini è ineguale in quest'opera; ma sentite il tocco soave e patetico del preludio e del terzettino finale "Angiol di pace..."

* Una delle sue passioni predominanti era di assistere (secondo asserisce Candido Decembrio), e "per piacere di lussuria, ai giuochi dei lottatori, per ammirare la schiettezza delle loro forme!"

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