What to see
Round about Catania
Illustrious guides seem to accompany the traveller throughout Catania – like Giovanni Verga, whose works burn with all the intensity of the Sicily of the past, or Luigi Capuana, a poet and storyteller who was the precursor of the Verismo movement.
But in 2001, the greatest guide will be Vincenzo Bellini, a musician whose bicentenary is celebrated this year. A truly talented artist, he began to study music at an early age under his father’s tutelage, and at seven years old had already written several pieces of sacred music. After the early operas – Il Pirata in 1827, La Straniera in 1829, I Capuleti e I Montecchi in 1830 – he had his first triumphant success in 1831 with La Sonnambula, performed at the Carcano theatre in Milan, a glory immediately followed by his Norma, also in 1831, at Milan’s La Scala. T
his, however, was badly received at the time, although it was later reassessed, contributing to the young composer’s fame in London and Paris, where in 1833 he was invited to conduct his own works, to widespread public approval.
He moved to Puteaux, near Paris, where he met Rossini and Chopin, composing the opera I Puritani in 1835. Eight months later, on 23rd September 1835, Vincenzo Bellini died at the tragically early age of thirty four. His remains were transferred to his native city in 1876 and laid to rest in the cathedral. Catania has honoured its famous native composer by naming a park after him, as well as the principle theatre, a music school and a home museum at number 3, Piazza S. Francesco, where Vicenzo Bellini came into the world.