Italy | 98 min

Cast: Martha Eggerth, Sandro Palmieri, Lamberto Picasso, Achille Majeroni, Maurizio D'Ancora

Regia: Carmine Gallone

Vincenzo Bellini, who has just completed his studies at the Naples Conservatory of Music, has occasion to meet in the home of a high magistrate, Fumaroli, his young daughter Maddalena. A sonata of his arouses the admiration of the maiden, for whom he writes a love song, “Casta Diva.” Great is his disappointment when he learns that Maddalena has already been promised by her father to a wealthy Neapolitan aristocrat, Ernesto Tosi. When he discovers that Maddalena's fiancé is flirting with the famous singer Giuditta Pasta and that Maddalena suffers as a result, Bellini proposes to the latter that she run away with him to Sicily. Maddalena agrees at first, but then withdraws her consent when she realizes that by fleeing with her Bellini would jeopardize his career. Deeply hurt by her refusal, the musician leaves for Milan with Giuditta Pasta. Despite his reported great successes, Bellini does not feel happy and transfuses into each of his melodies all the sadness of his disappointed love. When with Norma he attempts a theme entirely new to him, the audience does not follow him: the opera is booed. Maddalena, who has never ceased to think of Bellini, rushes, in spite of ill health, to Milan to have that romance “Casta Diva” that revealed to her the musician's genius included in the opera's first act. Carried to enthusiasm by that suave melody, the audience cheers the opera.