Norma

The great title of the melodrama that in 1977 brought international attention to the young Festival della Valle d’Itria, returns to Martina Franca in the version for two sopranos, undoubtedly closer to the letter and spirit of the dramaturgy envisioned by Bellini, who imagined the confrontation between a fully matured female protagonist and a barely adolescent apprentice priestess.

Norma, a lyric tragedy in two acts with a libretto by Felice Romani, has always been recognized as Vincenzo Bellini’s masterpiece. The story of love and death set in Celtic times, in a sacred forest of the Druids, is rooted in a tradition that goes back to classical theater, particularly Greek tragedy. It echoes Euripides’ Medea, where a betrayed woman kills her children. A theme dear to the romantics, like that of the Martyrs, embodied here by Norma, the priestess consecrated to God, who betrays her vocation for love.