Preliminaries

The years 1830 and 1831 marked the climax of Bellini's Italian career: the young Sicilian (he celebrated his thirtieth birthday in November 1831, little more than a month before the premiere of Norma) was already the most sought-after composer in Italy, evidently the heir to Rossini, quicker to find a distinctive voice than his slightly older contemporary Donizetti. He had arrived in Milan in April 1827 with an enviable reputation earned both at the Conservatorio and in the opera house in Naples; and in his new home, the centre of the Italian Romantic movement, he had confirmed that reputation with two operas, Il pirata (1827) and La straniera (1829), that were fast carrying his name over the whole civilized world. In the theatre poet Felice Romani he had found a friend and trusted collaborator who was to be his librettist for all the remaining operas he composed before leaving Italy in 1833.

Bellini spent the first months of 1830 in Venice, composing I Capuleti e i Montecchi and supervising its rehearsals and staging. Returning to Milan in April, exhausted and in wretched health, he found the city's theatrical life in a state of some turmoil.

At the time La Scala (and indeed La Fenice in Venice from which Bellini had just returned, so circumstances are unlikely to have taken him completely by surprise) was run by a group called ‘Giuseppe Crivelli e Compagni’.