Bellini, whose tragically early death robbed Italian music of an outstanding talent, had the characteristic Italian facility for melody and wrote in the Italian tradition of bel canta. This vocal style, in which brightness of tone and virtuoso agility are at premium, was in marked contrast to the somewhat lugubrious and fulsome style which was to pass for operatic singing once the tradition of Wagnerian musical drama was established.

Although the music of Italian opera was less portentous than the German, and in truth less capable of weighty expressiveness, yet when the music of a master of the style like Bellini is sung by a voice able to meet its demands, we can fully understand its immense vogue.