Vincenzo Bellini on Stage and Screen, 1935-2020 (New Approaches to Sound, Music, and Media)

Vincenzo Bellini on Stage and Screen, 1935-2020 offers nine case studies of the history of Vincenzo Bellini’s operas on stage, on screen, and in sound, video and performance art.This investigation begins in 1935, the hundredth anniversary of the composer’s death and the year when his first biopic was released, and ends in 2020, when performance artist Marina Abramovic’s ‘opera project’ 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, whose final scene is accompanied by Bellini’s famous aria ‘Casta Diva,’ was premiered. In Part One, several recent productions of La sonnambula, Norma and I Puritani are discussed from different perspectives, but the common focus is on the possible meanings of these works for contemporary spectators.Part Two, centered on cinema, includes chapters on biopics of Bellini that make extensive use of his music, as well as on the presence of this music in soundtracks of films from the last half century.Part Three turns to other media or mixtures of stage and screen, and focuses on Bell