composed for representation at Florence. The tenor part was written for
the great singer, Rubini, whose name has no peer among artists, since
male sopranos were abolished by the outraged moral sense of society.
Rubini retired to the country with Bellini, and studied, as they were
produced, the simple touching airs with which he so delighted the public
on the stage.

La Scala rang with plaudits when the opera was produced, and Bellini's
career was assured. "I Capuletti" was his next successful opera,
performed at Venice in 1829, but it never became popular out of Italy.

The significant period of Bellini's life was in the year 1831, which
produced "La Sonnambula," to be followed by "Norma" the next season.
Both these were written for and introduced before the Neapolitan public.
In these works he reached his highest development, and by them he is
best known to fame. The opera-story of "La Sonnambula," by Romani,
an accomplished writer and scholar, is one of the most artistic and
effective ever put into the hands of a composer. M. Scribe had already
used the plot both as the subject of a vaudeville and a chorégraphie
drama; but in Romani's hands it became a symmetrical story full of
poetry and beauty. The music of this opera, throbbing with pure melody
and simple emotion, as natural and fresh as a bed of wild flowers, went
to the heart of the universal public, learned and unlearned; and, in
spite of its scientific faults, it will never cease to delight future
generations, as long as hearts beat and eyes are moistened with human
tenderness and sympathy. And yet, of this work an English critic wrote,
on its first London presentation:

"Bellini has soared too high; there is nothing of grandeur, no touch of
true pathos in the common-place workings of his mind. He cannot reach