Bellini is poor, it is true, in harmony and instrumentation; but rich in feeling and in an individual melancholy of his own! Even in the least well-known of his operas, in "La straniera", in "Il pirata", there are long, long, long melodies such as no-one before him had produced. And what truth and power of declamation, as for example in the duet between Pollione and Norma! act 2, scene 3 above. Norma: "In mia man alfin tu sei" / "At last you are in my hands" And what elation of thought in the first phrase of the introduction the duet ... no-one ever has created another more beautiful and heavenly.