I Puritani

Vincenzo Bellini

I Puritani

new production

Dec 31 - Jan 18

Subscribe Now

Single tickets will go on sale to the general public in June 2025.

Patrons and Subscribers are eligible to purchase single tickets now. Please login to continue.

For gorgeous melody, spellbinding coloratura, and virtuoso vocal fireworks, I Puritani has few equals. On New Year’s Eve, the curtain goes up on the first new Met production of Bellini’s final masterpiece in nearly 50 years—a striking staging by Charles Edwards, who makes his company directorial debut after many successes as a set designer. The Met has assembled a world-beating quartet of stars, conducted by Marco Armiliato, for the demanding principal roles. Soprano Lisette Oropesa and tenor Lawrence Brownlee are Elvira and Arturo, brought together by love and torn apart by the political rifts of the English Civil War, with baritone Artur Ruciński as Riccardo, betrothed to Elvira against her will, and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as Elvira’s sympathetic uncle, Giorgio.

Production a gift of The Sybil B. Harrington Endowment Fund

Read Synopsis

Sung In

Italian

Met Titles In

  • English
  • German
  • Spanish
  • Italian

Estimated Run Time

3 hrs 20 mins

  • House Opens

  • Act I

    80 mins

  • Intermission

    30 mins

  • Acts II and III

    90 mins

  • Opera Ends

Cast

Select a date from the dropdown to filter cast by date of performance

{{::castMember.name | initials}} {{::castMember.name | limitTo:3}}
{{::castMember.imageAltText}}

{{::castMember.role | removeNumbering}}

{{::castMember.name | transposeComma}}

TBA

Performing

Performed

All Dates

{{::dateGroup.month | momentMonth:true}} {{::date | momentFormat:'D'}}{{$last ? '' : ','}}
I Puritani

World premiere: Théâtre Italien, Paris, 1835. I Puritani was the final work from Vincenzo Bellini, the great Sicilian exponent of the bel canto style of opera. It was written specifically for the talents of four of the best singers of its day, and the opera’s success depends almost entirely on the vocal abilities (and artistic sensibilities) of the performers. Its depiction of madness—both in individuals and in communities—is extraordinary: The opera suggests that the veneer of sanity can slip away at any moment, that madness can plunge a person into a destructive abyss.

Creators

Vincenzo Bellini (1801–35) possessed an extraordinary gift for melody and a thorough understanding of the human voice. His premature death—just as he was achieving international success and expanding in new musical directions—is one of the most unfortunate in the history of music. The librettist, Count Carlo Pepoli (1796–1881), was an Italian political exile living among the seething expatriate circles of Paris. For the libretto, Pepoli adapted the play Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers by Jacques-François Ancelot (1794–1854) and X. B. Saintine (1798–1865).

Charles Edwards

Production

Charles Edwards

Charles Edwards

Set Designer

Charles Edwards

Gabrielle Dalton

Costume Designer

Gabrielle Dalton

Tim Mitchell

Lighting Designer

Tim Mitchell

Tim Claydon

Movement Director

Tim Claydon

Headshot of Vincenzo Bellini

Composer

Vincenzo Bellini

Setting

I Puritani

The opera is set in the English Civil War of Puritans versus Royalists. While taking many liberties with history, it is set against a background that was a universal idea and very familiar to Italians in Bellini’s time. The bel canto composers explored with powerful results the relationship of civil strife and individual madness: Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor works with a similar, if slightly less explicit, format.

Music

Too often, bel canto (literally, “beautiful singing”) is explained as a succession of vocal gymnastics. On the contrary, operas written in this style center on long lyric lines, such as in the tenor’s Act I solo, which develops into the celebrated quartet “A te, o cara.” The soprano’s ravishing Act II aria “Qui la voce sua soave” works the same way and depends entirely on the singer’s ability to spin forth an elegant vocal line. And no one can deny Bellini’s unique mastery of melody, as in the rousing martial duet “Suoni la tromba, e intrepido” in Act II and the bass’s gorgeous showpiece in Act II, “Cinta di fiori.”

Puritani