Bellini’s I puritani and Walter Scott’s Old Mortality

[Don Basilio]

The Wikipedia page states :” Its libretto is by Count Carlo Pepoli, based on Têtes rondes et Cavaliers by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine, which is in turn based on Walter Scott's novel Old Mortality”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_puritani

This is seriously misleading. Having read Old Mortality I thought I would clear matters up for opera lovers. It must be a case of Chinese whispers on a monumental scale.


What they have in common

They are both set in Britain during the C17. The hero and heroine are on opposite sides in the struggles between the Stuarts and the puritan parliamentarians. And that’s about it, folks. Particulary Scott’s heroine is a royalist and Bellini’s is a puritan (or puritana in the context). The heros are on opposite sides.

What they don’t have in common

Old Mortality
Set in the reign of Charles II in Scotland.
The royalists have the government and are persecuting the Covenanters – who are not parliamentarians.
The hero fights with the Covenanters at the Battle of Bothwell Brig and has to leave the country for years.
The heroine is of a royalist family. The hero returns in time to save her from an unwanted marriage to another. She is very distressed but remains completely sane.

I puritani
Set during the Commonwealth in England.
The parliamentarians are in power and have Charles I’s wife, Henrietta Maria under arrest.
She escapes with the help of the hero, a royalist.
The heroine regains her reason after she is assured she was not deliberately betrayed.


Not really much in common. It would be nice to think there was a bel canto opera in which the hero was described as a moderate Presbyterian…

[french frank]

You'd better rewrite Wikipedia, Don B! What is the source of I Puritani, then? Any ideas?

[french frank]

This sent me to look up my Grove (1980). This mentions the libretto by Carlo Pepoli, and this mentions the play Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers, by Ancelot and Saintine, which so far so good, I assume? No mention of Old Mortality, as far as I can see.

Also.

And again, I find a source which says the play inspired Scott's Woodstock. Any good, Scottophiles?

[Don Basilio]

I was assuming Chinese whispers. Scott was fashionable in Paris, nobody had a clue about Scottish history and religious movements and wrote some hack work in the same period and then Bellini's librettist muddled it all up again.

Woodstock is set during the Commonwealth, the heroine is a puritan and the hero a royalist. She is involved in the escape of Charles II and the hero (not the heroine) gets jealous of her as a result - and given Charles II's proclivities, not surprisingly.

I'll do some further research.

[Don Basilio]

Grove clears it up

"The title in the Paris libretto is ‘I Puritani e i Cavalieri/opera-seria in due Parti’, but Bellini referred to it as ‘I Puritani’ in a letter of 4 September 1834. This form of the title was finally chosen because of the fame of Scott’s Old Mortality (1816), translated as Les puritains d’Ecosse (1817) and I puritani di Scozia (1825), with which the opera has little connection.2

[Don Basilio]

Whoops. I've just looked up the synopsis of Woodstock and the heroine (boring as most of Scott's heroines are) is indeed a royalist, which is why her father is trying to hide Charles II.

Woodstock was published 1826. I puritani first performed 1835. So the influence if any would have been the other way round.

[french frank]

So the influence if any would have been the other way round.

That's why I hastened back and put the word 'inspired' in italics. A sort of cautious "erm"??? - but that's what it said.

Annoyingly, Bristol Library has given up its subscription to Grove so I have to make do with my 1980 set, flogged off cheaply when the work was published online.

[Don Basilio]

I've just edited the wiki page. Gosh I feel macho.

[french frank]

I've just edited the wiki page. Gosh I feel macho.