Talk:Vincenzo Bellini

Style problem

Much of this reads like a bad translation from Italian. "The composer showed the taste for social life and the dandyism." Who writes like that? Certainly nobody whose first language is English. This titan of opera deserves better than this. aldiboronti (talk) 08:17, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

You're quite right! It could also be Google Translate's work. But work is needed. Along with the Donizetti opera articles, some of which I'm currently working on, Bellini is on my list to get to....... Viva-Verdi (talk) 17:11, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, striking while the iron is hot, as it were, I've gone ahead and tidied up the article a bit to make it a bit better, but - since I have several of the ref. books on the "Sources" list, I can work on this further. Viva-Verdi (talk) 18:10, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

This sentence, "In his last-known letter to Filippo Santocanale Bellini wrote on 16 August, followed by one to Florimo on 2 September." defies correction, other than by its author. Why call the former his last, and then mention a later one? In fact, why mention the former at all? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:4B00:8251:2D00:3817:CB4A:CE5B:1BC3 (talk) 14:55, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Other works

There's no mention of his concertos and other instrumental works. Odd. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:10, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I would be much happier if we at least said something useful about Bellini's musical style, and that implies a concentration on the operas which his fame justly rests on, instead of working first to revive unknown works (which would seem rather lacking in proportion). As it stands this article is half an article: an excellently detailed biography with nothing at all about how his music works. Or rather almost nothing: at least we hear about his melodie lunghe, lunghe, lunghe without hearing how they manage to be so lunghe without falling apart. Double sharp (talk) 08:11, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Concerns over POV editing

Lobosk - You added "Bellini was a notorious womanizer as evidenced in his letters to Francesco Florimo." I would like to have a page number for this statement please. You removed "Bellini never married, which has led to speculation as to his sexuality." The supporting Guardian source makes this point so why have you disputed it? You changed "Some biographers think this marked a homosexual relationship, but it is unclear whether things ever became physical" to "To modern eyes, such letters may appear to suggest a romantic attachment, but in Mediterranean societies and the world of early 1800's Italian opera, such expressions of close friendship were commonplace". The Galatopoulos source cited supports the original statement but not the latter (which is your opinion I think). Please explain Contaldo80 (talk) 23:10, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Hello Contaldo80, thank your for starting this conversation. This is much more conducive than the limited space in the edit summaries. I don't know if you saw my comments in these edit summaries but I will repeat some of them in more detail here.

1. There are several sources one may find for Bellini's being a serial womanizer, having affairs with multiple married women. I have not bothered to include them here as only a few people have had a major role in his life, the three currently listed. Some have that he callously tossed them aside when he lost interest and these present Bellini the person in a very negative light. The reason for his not marrying was that he put his musical career before these relationships and was concerned about the relationships getting in the way of his career. There is no need for interpretation of this because he says so in his own letters, to Florimo no less. However, as requested, I will provide page citations. I don't have an electronic copy of Rosselli, so give me some time. However, if you request page numbers for that, I should mention that there are no page numbers in the relevant section for Galatopoulos. We need to hold everything to the same objective scholarly standard. I should also mention that the Guardian opinion piece mentions much of what I have just described:

"Away from Florimo, Bellini became involved in a sequence of affairs with married women. Those of his letters known to be genuine betray a deep fear of emotional commitment. When he became involved with Giuditta Turina in 1828, he told Florimo she "might save me from a passion with for an unmarried girl, which could land me with an eternal tie". When Turina announced, four years later, that she was separating from her husband, Bellini bolted, declaring that "with so many commitments, such a relationship would be fatal to me". The source of his operatic empathy with the female psyche remains unknown - but there's little doubt that Bellini, who persistently portrayed men treating women badly, behaved abominably towards women himself."

2. Regarding the Guardian and Bellini never marrying as a basis for speculation about his sexuality, first, this is an opinion piece in the Guardian by a freelance writer, which is more than easily disproved by objective scholarship (see for example the part in point 1 about Bellini's letters to Florimo explaining his reasons for avoiding serious female attachments). I hope you agree that we should give greater weight to scholarly publications by recognized experts on a topic, and Bellini's own letters on which they are based, than to an opinion piece.

3. You wrote: '"To modern eyes, such letters may appear to suggest a romantic attachment, but in Mediterranean societies and the world of early 1800's Italian opera, such expressions of close friendship were commonplace". The Galatopoulos source cited supports the original statement but not the latter (which is your opinion I think).' First of all, no that is not my opinion. Absolutely not. Did you not see the citations immediately adjacent to the Galatopoulos? In one of your edit summaries, you had claimed that I "distort" the Galatopoulos reference. I was not citing Galatopoulos for the clause relating to Mediterranean societies. I believe you mistaken how citations work. Depending on the field, it is common practice to have all the citations appear at the very end of a sentence. Alternatively, you can have citations appear next to the relevant parts within a sentence, such that multiple citations may appear at various points within a sentence. The reason some scholars prefer to have all citations appear at the end of a sentence is the text is easier to read without being interrupted by numbers or authors' last names. Others prefer the second approach so that it is easier to discern what citation corresponds with which part of the text. As you can see, both approaches have their pros and cons but both are perfectly acceptable. I have modified the text to take the second approach in this instance, which I hope you find to your liking. The Galatopoulos is on the whole a very excellent biography of Bellini by the way, this discussion notwithstanding.

If you really do want my opinion, I do not know enough about Mediterranean societies to say how representative they are of it so I cannot speak to that. I have read enough European letters from the 1800's to say that many letters in close male friendships can be quite emotive. That was not uncommon. However, even by those standards the language of Bellini's letters strike me as particularly strong, and that is just my subjective opinion. Based on just that, I would think he was probably gay. But what makes me think it is unlikely that Bellini had a romantic attachment to Florimo is that he wrote repeatedly and in great detail about his multiple affairs with women, and there is also no evidence or suggestion of Bellini having a same-sex relationship with any other men. In the end, I think a romantic attachment is possible but very unlikely when weighing all the evidence together. But that's just my opinion, and just like that of Tim Ashley in the Guardian piece, it does not take precedence over published scholarship, and I would not count myself a Bellini expert.

4. Please do not jump to assumptions about the intentions behind my edits. I'm afraid you have greatly mistaken my intentions, which is understandable as you do not know me and I may have even done the same were I in your shoes. But it also pains me because you do not know where I am coming from. I see from your user page that you are interested in increasing coverage of LGBTQ+ content on Wikipedia as a way to counter discrimination and intolerance. I find your efforts not only valuable but necessary because I think this is an effective and productive way to counter discrimination and is much needed. In fact, I do the same in my life but as an academic with the same end goal. My concern in the case of Bellini is that the evidence for the thesis that he was romantically attracted to Florimo is weak based on the available scholarship. We can cite Galatopoulos, which we do (and should do), but the presentation needs to be balanced and proportionate to the strength of the countering evidence and scholarship. I am concerned with the original presentation for two reasons. First is my instincts as an academic and solid scholarship. The second is this: Shedding light on strong evidence that a historically important person was gay is important, nay needed, and moves us in the right direction to greater openness to the LGBT community. I am all for it. However, presenting a case that is easily refuted by the uninformed, like that being unmarried means somebody may be gay - I think we can all agree that that is not a strong argument, philosophy degree or not - is potentially dangerous because it makes the uninformed person dig in their heels, even more closed minded, and suspicious of future evidence. In this case, I mean they will be less open in the future to accept evidence that a different person was also gay. To give an example with another politically charged topic, imagine if climate deniers found that a major project on global warming was flawed. Imagine their response and how they will see future projects on global warming. My main point is whatever we present, we need to make sure it is strong if not foolproof so there won't be counterproductive backlash. There are so many great people who have shaped our history and were also gay, Oscar Wilde, Tchaikovsky, and Alan Turing to name just a few who each paid with their life for being gay and society loses because of it. Let's work on promoting recognition of them and what society has lost because of its intolerance of their sexuality.

Looking forward to continuing this productive conversation. -Lobosk — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lobosk (talk • contribs) 06:22, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Contaldo80 and Lobosk, a few points.

• Re "Bellini never married, which has led to speculation as to his sexuality." Only the second half of the sentence is supported by the Guardian article. It never states that the fact that he never married was the cause of the speculation. Here's the quote:

His public success was accompanied, however, by a private life riddled with complexity. Speculation is still rife about Bellini's sexuality. His closest, most enduring emotional tie was with Francesco Florimo, a fellow student at the Naples Conservatory. "Your existence is necessary to mine," Bellini told him in 1825. When Bellini left Naples for Milan, Florimo remained in the south, though a steady stream of letters passed between the two. Whether the relationship was ever physical is something we shall never know.

It is highly unlikely that simply being unmarried at the age of 33 (when he died) would have been seen as a remarkable sign of anything, given the relatively late age at which Italian men often married. Both Donizetti and Rossini married at 30, Mercandante at 39.

In his review of the Galatopoulos biography in the Daily Telegraph, Michael Kennedy writes:

There is an implication [in the book] that this was a homosexual relationship, but if so Bellini must have been bisexual, because he was a notorious womaniser.

And indeed Bellini's surviving letters to Florimo go into his womanizing adventures quite extensively, and not simply with Turina. This is gone into detail in "Giuditta Turina and Bellini in Music & Letters (1959) which has a detailed analysis of Bellini's letters to Florimo about his love life.

Re "To modern eyes, such letters may appear to suggest a romantic attachment, but in Mediterranean societies and the world of early 1800's Italian opera, such expressions of close friendship were commonplace" This is a close paraphrase from Rosselli pp. 33-34. Rosselli's comments were in reaction to a quote from Herbert Weinstock in his 1971 Bellini: His life and His Operas that evidence from Bellini's effusive letters to Florimo: "inescapably suggest[s] to modern readers a homosexual attachment".

My suggestion when writing about these issues in the article is to explicitly attribute them in the text, rather than writing in Wikipedia's "voice". Put something like:

According to Herbert Weinstock in Bellini: His life and His Operas evidence from Bellini's effusive letters to Florimo "inescapably suggest[s] to modern readers a homosexual attachment". However, in The Life of Bellini, John Rosselli has suggested....

Voceditenore (talk) 09:52, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Voceditenore for this valuable contribution to the discussion and for illuminating the relevant points much more clearly than I. It supports much of what I said above, being as objective as possible regardless of my personal preferences. With regards to the Guardian piece, thank you for your input. The strongest piece supporting the thesis that this was a romantic relationship was the letter, which is in the article. In fact, I have previously added quotes from even more letters in the same vein and left out the marriage claims. I hope this satisfies everyone. To avoid differences of opinion and interpretation, I fully agree with your recommendation presenting what biographers have said and letting the reader make their own conclusions. I have updated the article accordingly. Lobosk — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lobosk (talk • contribs) 02:18, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Look I can buy some of this. But what I still don't like is that the section is somewhat opaque - it sort of edges around the issue. I want to see clear mention of the words "sexuality", "homosexuality" and "bisexuality" somewhere. Even if the conclusion is we don't know anything with certainty. If you offer me a compromise that does this then I would be happy to move on. Thanks. Contaldo80 (talk) 23:55, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Contaldo for your reasonable response. I don't think though this is opaque when it says explicitly "romantic attachment." That phrase requires no interpretation. If it is opaque in any way, it is this. As it currently reads, it only says these expressions were commonplace at the time, which one could incorrectly interpret to mean homosexuality (or bisexuality as the case may be) was commonplace. Regardless, your request is very reasonable. I have absolutely no issue with any of the words you mentioned, and am happy with this rapprochement. I have closely paraphrased the Guardian writer we have discussed. -Lobosk — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lobosk (talk • contribs) 00:40, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't like the implication that "only one writer" has suggested this. This is not true. I've made an amendment as a compromise and if you can accept this then we can move on. Contaldo80 (talk) 22:10, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Contaldo80, if you read my earlier response, you will see that I said we can't say "Several writers" when only one was cited. I have lost count the number times I have had students made that mistake, either due to not know better or from sloppiness/laziness to look up more sources and settling on the first one they find. It is fine to say "several writers" but multiple sources need to provided when that is the case. That is simply good scholarship. You have inserted a second one and have so addressed that problem (though I have to say I am not happy with the quality of the source as it is simply someone's casual opinion rather than a scholarly/acdemic source, but I will go with it here). As a side another of my pet peeves is when somebody cites something and cites something else that cites the first thing, essentially a double counting of citations artificially inflating the citation count, not that that happened here. I do not know if you have been seeing this in my responses but I have mentioned several times that same source is presented as two separate references for the same thing. This has been reintroduced here. There are now three supporting references, two of which are identical, the very two I have mentioned before. I have removed one. You had asked that the words "sexuality" etc. be mentioned somewhere. I have done exactly what you asked and said you would accept. The new insertion to be honest seems awkward and I am changing back to "sexuality" (which seems is explicitly clear and was one of the terms you requested be used and less awkward in terms of phrasing) but am keeping the insertion of new citation but removing the duplicate. -L — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lobosk (talk • contribs) 03:30, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm finding all of this a little bit awkward. The Guardian source says "Speculation is still rife about Bellini's sexuality". Rife implies more than one person speculating. I don't believe we have to go and find and list all these other cases where the issue is considered. "Rife" is also not "some". I can sort of live with the amended wording you have. But I don't get this coyness about the terms bisexuality and homosexuality. I'm starting to think that you're trying to fudge the issue and bury it. Contaldo80 (talk) 05:00, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

We should be careful about treating an opinion piece by a freelance writer as incontrovertible fact. I could just as well publish a commentary (and have in academic outlets, but not about Bellini) but nobody should take my view on a matter as fact. We can provide clear evidence that multiple people speculated about Bellini's sexuality and that should be enough. Does it really matter if 2 versus 5 versus 10 people hold a view? Besides at some point we are getting into semantics. What counts as "rife?" Is 4 rife but not 3? You can see how things quickly devolve into the nonsensical so let's not go there. We have two references, one solid, and I am allowing the Guardian opinion piece to count as a second for the sake of argument here. That should be enough.

It is not coyness. We need to be careful about cherry picking the parts of the Guardian piece that we want. You emphasize that the choice of word "rife" but are now dissatisfied with the word "sexuality" despite that that very word was used in the same sentence you quoted above wit the word "rife." You also mentioned it earlier as one of the words you would be satisfied with. What has changed now such that that word is no longer satisfactory? Also, what is coy about the word "sexuality"? There is absolutely nothing ambiguous about it. The addition of "bisexuality and homosexuality" comes across as forced and completely redundant. By sexuality, clearly people are not speculating that Bellini was asexual. To argue otherwise would be disingenuous. And this is utterly awkward phrasing. Again, I am sorry but you proposed the word "sexuality" as an option here. We should all agree to honor in full the original agreement.

Also please do not keep editing the main page along with your comments here. Unless there is a foolproof and compelling reason why the use of the word "sexuality" was acceptable in the Guardian piece and not here, and why it is acceptable no longer to honor the original agreement regarding a word that you had proposed, continuing to make variations of the same edits would be to engage in an edit war. -L — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lobosk (talk • contribs) 22:26, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Somehow I missed the very end of your response. To make baseless accusations is not conducive to a productive interaction. I will let you know that I take this very seriously. Throughout our exchange, I have never once made the countering claim that a personal view is being intentionally pushing beyond what available evidence supports (and I still will not make that claim).

A. I have been nothing but professional, cordial, and open with you throughout this entire exchange.

B. As I have pointed out previously, I have even added more letters from Bellini to Florimo in the same vein as the one letter that is there.

C. You said earlier, and I quote: "I want to see clear mention of the words "sexuality", "homosexuality" and "bisexuality" somewhere. Even if the conclusion is we don't know anything with certainty."

I have done exactly that, used the word "sexuality." As I mentioned earlier, this is precisely the same word in the Guardian article. Why would it be acceptable there but not here? Would that not be a double standard?

D. Wikipedia is supposed to be "the free encyclopedia." It should therefore be based on sound, objective scholarship. Much of what I have mentioned is basic fundamentals of academic scholarship - citation styles, not using plural when only one citation is provided etc. I can easily provide an excessive set of examples from scholarly publications in a variety of fields. Even with that I have been accommodating. I have changed to citation to meet your satisfaction.

How is any of this fudging and burying an issue? I ask that you please refrain from such attacks in our future exchanges. To continue to do so is simply unproductive and I refuse to engage in that kind of interaction. To always think the worst of a person's intentions is always a loss to both parties. Again, I have refrained from taking such an approach with you. I ask that you show me reciprocity.

-L

I am afraid I cannot understand why you think it is enough to say the word "sexuality" but not to make the issue more transparent by using "homosexuality"? You continue to resist this and have nowhere supplied an argument as to why "homosexuality" or "bisexuality" are not acceptable terms to use? It's all very well you trying to articulate a sense of grievance. But my point stands in that the edits you have made have made the issue much more opaque. You removed the introductory sentence to the section which would have set the context of why we were then listing relationships with both men and women. This now reads "Bellini was a notorious womanizer as evidenced in his letters to Francesco Florimo. However, three people had a prominent place in his life: Francesco Florimo, Maddelena Fumaroli and Giuditta Turina." Using the term "womanizer" first will inevitably making the subsequent suggestions of an attachment to men less visible to the reader. Then in the section on Florimo it's sort of implied that they're best friends and nothing more. But that isn't what some of the sources are telling us.Contaldo80 (talk) 23:48, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Please address my comments point by point rather than bringing up new comments. We cannot have a productive dialogue if we are talking past year other. To answer your points, you mention the lines I added to the beginning but you fail to mention the many lines from Bellini's letters I added right before talking about his sexuality. Also I fail to see how "sexuality" is opaque. First, we have extensive quotes from Bellini's letters, mostly provided by me. Immediately after, we say that these letters have led some to question his sexuality. To say people will fail to understand that is disingenuous; it would mean people would fail to understand that Florimo is a man. If that is not enough, I later mention Rosselli's remark about the letters and sexual attachment. Back to my original point, why is it that the essentially parallel in the Guardian article - the Bellini letters leading to speculation about his sexuality - sufficiently justifies mention of his sexuality in the article but not the very same thing is insufficiently clear in the article? That is contradictory. By that line of reasoning, "sexuality" in the Guardian article is too vague to interpret for us to interpret to mean sexual or romantic interests. If that is so, we should remove mention of possible romantic attachment to Florimo altogether. I think we can agree that neither of us thinks that is the way to go. My other main point is you yourself had originally said "sexuality" was fine. You have gone back on that agreement. Unless you can provide a justification for all this, I suggest leaving it to match the Guardian article. What I really disapprove of is this forcedness at the expense of good scholarship. Again, please don't revert my edits until we reach a resolution. -L — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lobosk (talk • contribs) 13:01, 25 June 2019 (UTC)