Ah! Se una volta sola (La sonnambula)

Bellini composed La sonnambula in the second half of 1830, recovering from illness near Lake Como, and reused material drafted for an abandoned Ernani. Felice Romani built the libretto from a Scribe ballet-pantomime scenario. The premiere at the Teatro Carcano in Milan on 6 March 1831 had Giuditta Pasta and Giovanni Battista Rubini in the leading roles and was a triumph; Glinka, in the audience, reported that in the second act the singers themselves wept and carried the house with them. The opera asks almost nothing of plot and everything of long, sustained melodic line.