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La Sonnambula was first performed with enormous success at the Teatro Carcano, Milan on 6th March 1831 with Giuditta Pasta and Giambattista Rubini in the roles of Amina and Elvino, the most well-known and ideal singers for the parts at the time. Bellini was full of praise for their performance and declared them "two angels who could transport the audience into a state bordering on distraction". La Sonnambula is an idillic, classical and intense melodramma with an extremely fine, lyrical musicality and tense with pure "canto", suspended between Arcadia and Romanticism. It is a combination of tender and melancholic sentiments and of tragic and moving passion, in a natural uncontaminated and innocent atmosphere and humanity which clearly represent the artistic experience of the composer. The charming staging by Hugo de Ana, at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari goes back to January 2007. Through fascinating tableaux vivants, references to 17th century Romantic painting and refined visual projections, it is a tribute to Luchino Visconti. Visconti produced the memorabile performance of Sonnambula in March at the Scala di Milano with the magnificant Maria Callas.

Most of Schubert's operas were written without a specific commission, in the hope that, once completed, some theatre might find them interesting simply by virtue of their musical value. This unrealistic optimism proved almost always wrong and Schubert suffered bitter disappointments, very often working for nothing. Begun on 20th September 1821, Alfonso und Estrella was completed on 27th February 1822 but was first staged, on the initiative of Franz Liszt, only in 1854, after Schubert's death. Alfonso und Estrella has the characteristic climate of a romantische Oper. If it is true that Schubert lacks the sense of theatre which is typical of the best operatic composers of his day (for example Weber), the power of his creativity and beauty of many arias cannot be denied.