THE SONGBIRD: Henriette Bonde-Hansen was born on the island of Funen in Denmark in 1963. She trained in Copenhagen and made her debut in 1993 as Adele in "Die Fledermaus." She appeared regularly at the Royal Danish Opera (Susanna, Zerlina, Gilda, Marzelline, Juliette) and has sung Mozart and works by bel canto composers all over Europe, as well as operas by Debussy, Handel, and Meyerbeer.

THE MUSIC: "Beatrice di Tenda" was Bellini's penultimate work, coming between "Norma" (1831) and "I Puritani "(1835) and it was the only one of his operas to be have a full score published in his lifetime. The libretto is not one of Felice Romani’s best and the two had a falling out over it’s late delivery, which severely curtailed the time Bellini’s had to write the music. The 1833 premiere in Venice with Giuditta Pasta in the title role was not a success, yet the work gained some traction in Europe as a showcase for prima donnas including Marietta Alboni, Caroline Unger, and Giuseppina Strepponi. It fell out of the repertoire by the 1870s and is rarely revived today. The plot resembles that of "Anna Bolena" -- it centers on the unhappy marriage of Beatrice to the Duke of Milan, and a bitter, complicated rivalry with Agnese that leads to her execution. This aria is sung in the final scene before she is led to her death and is a case of Bellini borrowing from himself. The libretto from Romani was delivered so late that Bellini ran out of time to compose the complete work before the scheduled premiere. His solution was to delay a bit, cut some scenes, and plug in this tune from his earlier opera, "Bianca e Fernando."

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