# Bellini Donizetti Rossini--give one up



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Which of these three could you live without?

I'll get rid of Rossini. I get much more pleasure from Donizetti and Bellini operas.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Given my options, I voted "be gone" to Bellini. However, I feel the same way about Donizetti. Rossini's the keeper.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

None of theme , it's that simple, if.... by any change I must choose, take them all together .


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I like all three, but I would deem none of them essential for me. I'd probably pick Bellini to go, simply because the others wrote more operas I like.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I’ve tried, heaven knows I’ve tried, but I just don’t like canary fanciers music. If I never heard another note of B, D or R it would be a day too soon! Good luck though to those who do.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Barbebleu said:


> I've tried, heaven knows I've tried, but I just don't like canary fanciers music. If I never heard another note of B, D or R it would be a day too soon! Good luck though to those who do.


I am a very long way from being a "canary fancier" and none of my favourite singers could be counted amongst those who put beauty before expression or pretty sounds before musicality. That said, I love the music of the _bel canto_, but only when it is performed by singers who can give it due dramatic expression. I have no time for empty note spinning.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Isn’t ‘canary fancier’ a cracker of an expression? I’ve just found it really difficult to get into bel canto in full operas but I do appreciate the odd aria when it’s sung by particular singers. Sutherland in Lucia for example.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Barbebleu said:


> Isn't 'canary fancier' a cracker of an expression? I've just found it really difficult to get into bel canto in full operas but I do appreciate the odd aria when it's sung by particular singers. Sutherland in Lucia for example.


I prefer Callas in the role (but you knew that already :lol.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Some of my very favorite music is composed by all three. I love coloratura music. Two of the arias I've listen to the most obsessively are from Callas's Armida and Sutherland's Semiramide. The big trio from Norma is some of the best opera. How could I live without The Mad Scene from Lucia or the music from the end of Lucrezia Borgia?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Some of my very favorite music is composed by all three. I love coloratura music. Two of the arias I've listen to the most obsessively are from Callas's Armida and Sutherland's Semiramide. The big trio from Norma is some of the best opera. How could I live without The Mad Scene from Lucia or the music from the end of Lucrezia Borgia?


And let's not forget that even Wagner had high praise for *Norma*.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

But of course Wagner was mad!:lol:


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Rossini can go (all except this one)


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## Dick Johnson (Apr 14, 2020)

I love all three. If I had to drop one, Bellini gets the nod. Bellini's best is just as good as the best of Rossini and Donizetti - the nod goes to the other two for their greater number of masterpieces. The order might very well be different for me if Bellini had only lived a few more years.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Dick Johnson said:


> I love all three. If I had to drop one, Bellini gets the nod. Bellini's best is just as good as the best of Rossini and Donizetti - the nod goes to the other two for their greater number of masterpieces. The order might very well be different for me if Bellini had only lived a few more years.


I could never do without Callas singing Norma, so it would have to be Rossini or Donizetti. Fortunately I don't have to make that choice.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Despite the fact I found the poll somehow ''peculiar'' I voted for Rossini. The other two guys are very beloved to me. (I like Rossini, but not for his operas. I like more his Liturgie, his piano works etc. I believe he had produced a better outcome not as opera composer.)


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I could never do without Callas *singing Norma,* so it would have to be Rossini or Donizetti. Fortunately I don't have to make that choice.


...and Medea! :tiphat:


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Dimace said:


> ...and Medea! :tiphat:


And with a whole host of others, but this isn't the place to list them.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Bellini is out. Rossini is a lock and I prefer Donizetti to Bellini.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Barbebleu said:


> But of course Wagner was mad!:lol:


I thought we'd got rid of comments like this when DavidA/Handelian left us! :devil:

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Bellini is one of my favourite composers, so he was staying, but how to choose between Donizetti and Rossini? I adore bel canto, but as Tsarras says, it needs to be sung by singers that understand its emotive content. I can't do without any of the three and I'd be quite happy to give up Mozart instead. However, if I have to lose one, I choose Donizetti due to the larger number of duds in his output (out of sixty operas).

N.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I enjoy Bellini's operas, but I would not miss his music as much as Rossini and Donizetti . Unfortunately, Bellini died tragically young at the age of only about 33 , so he never got to realize his full potential as an opera composer . Rossini and Donizetti lived longer , even though Rossini retired from writing operas, but not composing a variety of other works, young, too .
So Bellini's music just doesn''t rise to the level of his two famous Italian countrymen ( or paisonos ) .
And if Verdi had died as young as Bellini, he would probably be totally forgotten today .


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I have more favorite Donizetti operas by far than Rossini or Bellini. I could almost go straight Donizetti but for one of may favorite operas of all time, Bellini's La Sonnambula. I do like a couple other Bellini operas though, but not like Donizetti or La Sonnambula.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Tsaraslondon said:


> And let's not forget that even Wagner had high praise for *Norma*.


Well, isn't that cute..  Truly a man of culture, refined taste.. 

Richard Wagner once admitted that he liked the waltz "Wein, Weib und Gesang" (Wine, Women and Song) Op. 333.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Strauss_II#Musical_rivals_and_admirers


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