Prelude (Beatrice di Tenda)

Beatrice di Tenda came out of a quarrel. Bellini and Felice Romani settled on the subject late, the libretto arrived in fragments, and the premiere at La Fenice on 16 March 1833 was postponed and then coldly received; composer and librettist attacked each other in the Venetian press and never worked together again. The story is historical — the second wife of Filippo Maria Visconti, tried and executed on a charge of adultery in 1418. Bellini's response to a weak dramatic frame was to write the heroine's music at unusual length, ending with a prayer from prison.