I puritani
opera by Vincenzo Bellini
I puritani (The Puritans) is an 1835 opera by Vincenzo Bellini. It was originally written in two acts and changed to three acts before the premiere on the advice of Gioachino Rossini, with whom the young composer had become friends. The music was set to a libretto by Count Carlo Pepoli, an Italian émigré poet whom Bellini had met at a salon run by the exile Princess Belgiojoso, which became a meeting place for many Italian revolutionaries. The opera is based on Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers (Roundheads and Cavaliers), a historical play written by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine and set in the English Civil War. Except for its title, the opera is not in any way based on Walter Scott's 1816 novel Old Mortality (translated into Italian in 1825 as I Puritani di Scozia), despite some claims to the contrary.
When Bellini arrived in Paris in mid-August 1833, he had intended to stay only about three weeks, the main aim being to continue the negotiations with the Paris Opéra which he had begun on his way to London a few months earlier. These negotiations came to nothing, but by October he had decided to spend the winter in Paris, especially as both Il pirata and I Capuleti e i Montecchi were to be given by the Théâtre-Italien that season. The offer from the Théâtre came in January 1834; he accepted because "the pay was richer than what I had received in Italy up to then, though only by a little; then because of so magnificent a company; and finally so as to remain in Paris at others' expense."
Taking from April until its premiere the following January, Bellini had time to ensure that the opera was as close to perfection as possible. After the premiere, Bellini reported to his friend Francesco Florimo in Naples that:
The French had all gone mad; there were such noise and such shouts that they themselves were astonished at being so carried away ... In a word, my dear Florimo, it was an unheard of thing, and since Saturday, Paris has spoken of it in amazement
It was to be Bellini's final work; he died in September 1835 at the age of 33.
“I puritani” enters the record as opera by Vincenzo Bellini. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what puritani, opera and Vincenzo can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q470886. VIAF identifies the subject as 184379899. The Library of Congress control number is n81150158. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1835, 1816, 1825 and 1833.
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