CORRIERE DELLA SERA
(November 20, 1953)

     CORRIERE DELLA SERA: “Norma di Bellini...”

     For the opening of the winter operatic season 1953-54, comprising fourteen operas, the premiere of the opera Norma by Vincenzo Bellini was given tonight as a gala soiree in the sold-out house of the Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian political counselor attached to the Allied Military Government, Professor De Castro, and the Mayor of Trieste, Bartoli, were in attendance.
     The performance was a most satisfying success. Maestro Antonino Votto, the principal performers Elena Nicolai, Franco Corelli and Boris Christoff, and particularly the protagonist Maria Meneghini Callas, were applauded vividly at the end of each act and at the opera’s conclusion.
     A solemn ceremony of entrustment of the autograph of Bellini’s opera La straniera, offered to Trieste by the town of Catania, took place in the City Hall at 12:30. The precious antique had been brought by the counselor of the Catanian community Attorney Giovanni Perni, who was also the bearer of a letter by Senator Merlin to Mayor Bartoli.