Anybody going to this?  It started at Grange Park last week (Pimlico Opera now forms the touring/young artists' arm of Grange Park Opera) and is now on tour, coming to the Baylis Theatre at Sadler's Wells this Sunday.

It will be the first time I have seen this opera fully staged, following ENO's concert performances at the Barbican in 2003 (?) with Richard Bonynge conducting.  (The evening I was there, Dame Joan showed up and got a standing ovation just for walking into the auditorium!  What pressure that must have put the cast under.)

Anyway, details here:
http://www.grangeparkopera.co.uk/article.php?id=67&subsection=80

...and if anybody is going to be at the Baylis Theatre performance drop me a line so we can meet up.

Thanks for humouring me, Don B!

I agree that it is a fairly weak piece - that's what you get when you make a loose approximation of a selection of excerpts which make up about 15 minutes in total of a great play, and stre-e-e-e-tch them bel canto style into an entire evening's entertainment   I've always been fond of the music, though - Bellini knew he was good at writing female voice duets, so what better trick than to make Romeo a trouser role?

The performance was pretty good.  It was done in a 20th-century mafioso setting (operatic cliché? Surely not ) which worked well given the way the opera focuses on allegiance rather than actual family ties.

Owen Gilhooly as Capellio (Capulet) and Jonas Gudmundson as Tebaldo (the tenor role, more of an equivalent of Paris in the play than, as the name suggests, Tybalt) were very good.  The (mezzo) role of Romeo lies really high, and was a bit much for Hannah Pedley at times. Sinead Campbell's Giulietta was sweet and lyrical.  Being in a tiny theatre with no pit, the small orchestra was hidden round the side of the stage but played very well, especially the horn in the opening to Giulietta's famous scena.  Some of the tempi were a bit on the fast side for Bellini's more langorous passages.  I'm afraid I'm not sure who the conductor was, without referring to my programme which is at home - the website lists Sergio la Stella (who I haven't come across) but the Baylis Theatre performance was definitely conducted by a woman.

The faults, such as they were, were definitely in the work rather than the performance.  There were plenty of moments which were unintentionally funny, mainly resulting from the characters' propensity to run into the room threatening each other with weapons but never quite getting around to killing each other!

I have never seen any of them staged.

In concert performance I heard Il pirata some years ago, and Beatrice di Tenda more recently, both thanks to Chelsea Opera Group.  I've never heard a note of La straniera but will fortunately be treated to it by Opera Rara next month (visit the Southbank Centre site for details).

In my view, Bellini is always worth hearing.  Such a musical composer, the very definition of what I think of as 'bel canto', with all those long-phrased cantilenas.  Whether much of his output is worth doing in fully staged performance is another matter entirely, as is the case with many of his contemporaries' lost 'masterpieces'.  To a certain extent, once you've seen one you've seen them all.  There are a few notable exceptions - Norma really isn't like anything else.

I'd put in a good word for I Puritani - once you get past the hazy geography (the librettist set it in Plymouth, which he thought was in Scotland) and the slightly silly plot* it has some wonderful music, including a splendidly atmospheric opening, a hauntingly beautiful mad scene and a splendid crowd-pleasing final duet in Act 2.  WNO did it aeons ago but I don't think it's been done here recently.

*(Cavalier is engaged to Roundhead's daughter, but finds that Queen Henrietta Maria is being held in future father-in-law's castle, and thus escapes with her, having been let past by other Roundhead who has designs on said daughter, who thinks Cavalier has deserted her and goes mad.  Cavalier and fiance are reunited on the battlefield, Cavalier sings top F.  General rejoicing)

La Sonambula is very sweet. Although it is certainly not an opera buffa, it is the nearest Bellini came to a comic opera.

We may think it a bit silly now, but at the time the central situation (working class girl found in a gent's bedroom at night) was a very serious matter indeed for the girl.  Still, the chorus when the entire village tip toes into  the bedroom just seems to me irresistibly funny.

The principals are all shown as limited, but sympathetic.  Even the tenor acting as a cad, is OK at heart.

The bass' entrance cavatina and cabaletta are lovely - are they the most Bellini-esque piece for a bass?  (PURITANI includes the rousing bass cabaletta duet Suoni la tromba.  Not what is usually thought of as Bellini.)

The final cabaletta uses the flashiest of coluratura to express a simple girl's relief, but seems completely right.

Shame ENO never does Bellini.

Does the third para of this Guardian article today herald some movement in this direction?