Known as a masterpiece of Romantic opera, it was staged for the first time in the Teatro Real in June 2016, with an exceptional cast including Diana Damrau, Javier Camarena, Venera Gimadieva and Celso Albelo, with the Teatro Real Orchestra and Chorus.

This is the last opera by Bellini, who died at the young age of 34 after having triumphed in Parisian high society, and finally —in a music scene dominated by Italians, from Rossini to Donizetti, his great rival— having been commissioned to write a piece which would be first performed at the Théâtre Italien in 1835. The Sicilian composer chose a historical subject, set during the English Civil War when Cromwell and the Puritans clashed with the Royalists. He created an exciting love story featuring plenty of passion, treachery and madness. The opera centres on a typical Romantic heroine, Elvira, who finds herself inexplicably abandoned by her betrothed on her wedding day. The pain this causes her is so unbearable that she goes insane. Madness was characteristic of the Romantic era: the physical fragility and social marginalisation of the characters was a way to make the irrepressible force of their emotions more expressive. In the stylised staging by Emilio Sagi, the characters appear to be overcome by melancholy.