Adelson e Salvini

Adelson e Salvini (Adelson and Salvini) is a three-act opera semi-seria composed by Vincenzo Bellini from a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola. The opera was based on the 1772 novel Épreuves du Sentiment by François-Thomas-Marie de Baculard d'Arnaud, and it draws on a previously performed French play of 1803 by Prospère Delamare.

Bellini's first opera was written as his final project at the Naples San Sebastiano Conservatory, when the composer was 23 years old. It was the custom at the Conservatory to introduce promising students to the public with a dramatic work. Bellini styled his project an opera semi-seria, and it was first performed at the Teatro del Conservatorio di San Sebastiano in Naples sometime between mid-January and mid-March 1825, although David Kimbell states 12 February 1825. Weinstock attributes the uncertainty as to the exact date to a series of deaths of several prominent people (including Bourbon King Ferdinand I), which caused all public entertainment to stop during periods of mourning.

"With a view to professional staging", various revisions were undertaken between 1826 and 1828, but the opera was never performed professionally.

Bellini's score does not bring out much of the humour of the piece. Nevertheless, the work was so popular among the Conservatory's student audience that it was performed every Sunday for a year.

It was successful enough to generate a commission from the royal court, after it had captured the interest of the impresario Domenico Barbaja of the San Carlo Opera. Barbaja launched Bellini's career, commissioning him to write his next work, Bianca e Gernando in 1826, which was revised two years later as Bianca e Fernando.

Although much influenced by the music of Gioacchino Rossini, Adelson e Salvini exhibits some of the characteristic tuneful style and delicate vocal line that Bellini achieved in his mature works. Characteristically, Bellini was to re-use some of the music from this opera in later works, notably Nelly's Act 1 Romanza "Dopo l'oscura nembo" which became Giulietta's aria "O quante volte" in I Capuleti e i Montecchi. Additionally, this was the only Bellini opera provided with Recitativo secco.

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