YMMV / Norma

• Adaptation Displacement: It's safe to say that Bellini's opera is far more well-known than Soumet's play, if anyone has even heard of it.
  • Felice Romani had written a libretto with a similar subject called La Sacerdotessa d'Irminsul ("The Priestess of Irminsul") for an 1817 opera by Giovanni Pacini. For Norma, Romani simply reused the background of his earlier libretto for this one. Guess which one is most performed today?
• Awesome Music: This being the ultimate bel canto opera, expect plenty of beautiful music and singing. Special mention goes to "Casta Diva".
• Broken Base: Which Norma is better: Maria Callas? Beverly Sills? Joan Sutherland? The debate will never end.
• Older Than They Think: The love story of a Druid priestess and a Roman soldier isn’t unique to this opera; this storyline has been featured in various Romantic novels of the early 19th century, such as the novel Les Martyrs by François-René de Chateaubriand, and Giovanni Pacini's opera La Sacerdotessa d'Irminsul.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Norma was written at a time when Italy was occupied under Austria, and when Italian nationalism was being brutally suppressed in Rome, Parma, and Bologna. Italian audiences definitely would’ve sympathized with Norma at the time, since the Romans were the colonizers and the Druids the victims.