A report on Norma (opera), Beatrice di Tenda and Joan Sutherland

Notable exponents of the title role in the post-war period have been Maria Callas, Leyla Gencer, Joan Sutherland, and Montserrat Caballé.

The opera for December 1831 at La Scala became Norma, while the one for the 1832 Carnival season at La Fenice became Beatrice di Tenda.

The opera was Bellini's penultimate work, coming between Norma (1831) and I puritani (1835) and it was the only one of his operas to be published in full score in his lifetime.

She was engaged by the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as a utility soprano, and made her debut there on 28 October 1952, as the First Lady in The Magic Flute, followed in November by a few performances as Clotilde in Vincenzo Bellini's opera Norma, with Maria Callas as Norma.

During the 1960s, Sutherland added the heroines of bel canto to her repertoire: Violetta in Verdi's La traviata, Amina in Bellini's La sonnambula and Elvira in Bellini's I puritani in 1960; the title role in Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda in 1961; Marguerite de Valois in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots and the title role in Rossini's Semiramide in 1962; Norma in Bellini's Norma and Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare in 1963.

Beatrice di Tenda was revived in 1961 by the American Opera Society in New York with Joan Sutherland, Enzo Sordello, Marilyn Horne and Richard Cassilly under Nicola Rescigno, and in the same year at La Scala with Sutherland and Raina Kabaivanska and with Antonino Votto conducting.