About the production
Two young people from feuding families love each other. But fate does not want them to be happily united.
Romeo and Giulietta are already separated. While he still clings to the illusion of a happy future together, she chooses family honor and is already facing her death. The enmity between the Capuleti and Montecchi families is intensified by the historically real conflict between the Guelphs loyal to the Pope and the Ghibellines loyal to the Emperor in 13th century Italy. The tragic outcome of the drama is inevitable.
"Bellini is the inventor of a completely new musical technique: the 'lunga lunga cantilena' ('long, long melody'), which was later to become Wagner's 'infinite melody' and the basis of his dramaturgical thinking. Bellini was taken as a model for this invention by composers such as Chopin and Wagner. I Capuleti e i Montecchi offers us the quintessence of the composer's melodic inspiration, with some immortal melodies that immediately became extraordinarily famous. The opera represents the very founding moment of the so-called 'bel canto' - a term coined in the second half of the 19th century to express nostalgia for that glorious moment in Italian music." (Gianluca Capuano)
With I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Bellini finally established himself as one of Italy's leading early Romantic composers, alongside Gioachino Rossini and Gaetano Donizetti. "My style is now heard in the most important theaters in the world ... and with the greatest acclaim," he noted in the same month of the premiere.
Musically, the new production of I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Vienna State Opera in 1977 set new standards in the reception tradition of the work in the 20th century, particularly through KS Agnes Baltsa's interpretation of Romeo. Due to the large number of performances of I Capuleti e i Montecchi since the 1970s, the work is once again one of the most important in the bel canto repertoire today.
