This new release marks the first full-length Bellini opera in Opera Rara’s catalogue.

Three of Bellini’s operas – La sonnambula and Norma (both 1831) and his last work, I puritani (1835) – remain classics of the bel canto repertoire, yet the slightly earlier La straniera (The Stranger) remains curiously neglected. In fact, this highly romantic melodrama, first staged at La Scala in 1829, was initially enormously successful, both in Italy and internationally, but gradually fell from the operatic repertoire as the bel canto style itself became unfashionable.

Set in Brittany around 1200, the plot of La straniera centres around the identity of the mysterious woman who roams, veiled, through the landscape of Brittany. Ignorant peasants suppose her to be a witch, little suspecting that she is, in fact, Alaide, the exiled wife of the King of France. She attracts the attention of the local Count, Arturo, who is supposed to be engaged to Isoletta, and who finds himself jealous of her visitor, Valdeburgo (Alaide’s disguised brother). The result is confusion, violence and a tragic ending.

It was with La straniera that Bellini, aged 27, declared his independence from the florid style of Rossini by limiting the score’s coloratura writing in favour of straightforward, graceful melodies which express the characters’ often fiery emotions with minimal adornment or display; perfect for the beautifully constructed verses of Felice Romani, Bellini’s favourite librettist. The score points forward to Bellini’s greatest works and, on its own account, includes superb dramatic writing and those characteristic ‘long, long melodies of which he alone had the secret’, as Verdi put it.