Zaira

Encyclopedia : Z : ZA : ZAI : Zaira

Zaira is a tragedia lirica, or tragic opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini (1829), from a libretto by Felice Romani based on the tragedy Zaïre (1732) by Voltaire.

It received its first performance at the Teatro Ducale, Parma, on the 16th May, 1829. The opera was a failure at its premiere and Bellini re-used substantial parts of it for his I Capuleti e i Montecchi (1830).

The opera was revived in 1975 in a reconstruction by Rubino Profeta at the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania with a cast including Renata Scotto and Giorgio Casellato Lamberti and again in 1990 with Katia Ricciarelli, Ramon Vargas and Simone Alaimo. Recordings exist of both these performances.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.