The most significant features of the Italian musical theater of the first half of the XIX century are summarized, the synthetic genre nature of which is concentrated in the poetics of the “romantic drama of belcanto” (the term of S. Barkhatova). Its essence and typological qualities are largely determined not only by the era, but also by the mediating position that this genre occupies between the earlier opera-series and the musical drama of the second half of the XIX century, which will later be represented in Verdi. It is established that the transitional nature of belcanto drama determines the variety of its genre names and the lack of stable established terminology. There are definitions such as “historical melodrama”, “opera seriа”, “lyrical tragedy”, “tragic drama” or “melodrama”, etc., each of which, in fact, is a modification of one genre of musical drama. The significant role of V. Bellini in the development of Italian opera of this period and the creative and performing traditions of the art of belcanto is determined. The history of the creation of the opera “Beatrice di Tenda”, its figurative and dramatic specificity, due to the dual genre nature of the work, which was defined as an “opera seriа” and as a “lyrical tragedy”. The poetics of the latter is manifested in the appeal to the historical plot with the specifics of the era and place of action, while the typological features of Italian opera are evident in the dominance of belcanto traditions, number structure, which determined the dramatic performance of Bellini. The origins of the early Italian musical and theatrical tradition go back to the obvious spiritual and moralizing orientation in the development of Beatrice's image, and the musical and rhetorical content of its intonation, which tends to the figures of “ascent” (anabasis) and “circle” associated with the ideal. Perfect, while the characterization of her husband-tyrant Filippo is marked by an appeal to the typological features of the pompous march, a symbol of indivisible brutal power. At the same time, the emphasis on the spiritual and ethical “dominant” in the plot unfolding of the action and image of the protagonist is consistent with the religious pursuits of the Risorgimento era, which sought national unity, including on the basis of spiritual renewal of society