Bel canto is both a school of singing and an operatic style of the first half of the 19th century. Its essence is perfect beauty of tone, flawless legato, filigree coloratura, and the ability to spin long, supple melodic lines on a single breath.
The style's golden age is bound to the operas of Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini (Norma), and Gaetano Donizetti (Lucia di Lammermoor). Bel canto demands not power but flexibility and control from the singer. Among the Ukrainian performers of this tradition is the world star Solomiya Krushelnytska: famed for her Wagner and Puccini roles on Europe's leading stages, she also sang the bel canto repertoire (her operatic debut in 1893 was Leonora in Donizetti's La favorite).
