question: Which opera has more acts, Partenope or La sonnambula?
answer: La sonnambula
context: Title: Princess's Theatre, London
  Passage: The Princess's Theatre or Princess Theatre was a theatre in Oxford Street, London.  The building opened in 1828 as the "Queen's Bazaar" and housed a diorama by Clarkson Stanfield and David Roberts.  It was converted into a theatre and opened in 1836 as the Princess's Theatre, named for then Princess Victoria before her accession as queen.  After an unsuccessful series of promenade concerts, alterations were made on the interior, and the theatre was reopened on 26 December 1842 with Vincenzo Bellini's opera "La sonnambula".  The theatre, by now under the management of John Medex Maddox, presented operas and other entertainments, such as General Tom Thumb.
  Title: La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur
  Passage: La somnambule is a ballet-pantomime composed by Ferdinand Hérold and premiered on 19 September 1827 at the Académie Royale de Musique.  The scenario was by Eugène Scribe, and it was choreographed by Jean-Pierre Aumer.  This ballet was produced in 1827 at the height of a fashion for stage works incorporating somnambulism.  The work was quite popular in Paris and inspired many more works incorporating somnambulism, including Vincenzo Bellini's well-known Italian opera "La sonnambula".
  Title: Partenope (Zumaya)
  Passage: Partenope is an opera in three acts by Manuel de Zumaya.  Zumaya adapted the libretto himself from a Spanish translation of Silvio Stampiglia's Italian libretto which was first set for performance in Naples during 1699 with music by Luigi Mancia.  All told, Stampiglia's libretto was used by a variety of composers for more than a dozen operas that were produced all over Italy, including versions by Leonardo Vinci and George Frideric Handel.  Zumaya's version was commissioned by Viceroy Fernando de Alencastre Noroña y Silva and produced at the viceroyal palace in Mexico City on 1 May 1711.  The production is the earliest known full opera produced in North America and the first opera written by an American-born composer.  However, "Parténope" is not the earliest opera to be performed in the New World, as some sources have reported.  That distinction belongs to Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco's "La púrpura de la rosa", which premiered ten years earlier in Lima, Peru.
  Title: La sonnambula (disambiguation)
  Passage: La sonnambula is an 1831 opera by Vincenzo Bellini with an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario by Eugène Scribe
  Title: Loretta Di Franco
  Passage: Loretta Di Franco is an American operatic soprano who is chiefly known for her more than 900 performances at the Metropolitan Opera from 1961-1995.  Originally a member of the Met's opera chorus, she eventually was promoted to singing small comprimario roles beginning with one of the pages in Wagner's "Tannhäuser" and the peasant girl in "The Marriage of Figaro" in 1961.  She went on to win the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1965 which led to her first substantial role, Chloe in "The Queen of Spades".  She continued to appear annually at the Met for the next 30 years, performing both leading and supporting roles.  Some of the parts she performed at the Met included Annina in "La traviata", both the Aunt and Barena in Janáček's "Jenůfa", Barbarina and Marcellina in "The Marriage of Figaro", Berta in "The Barber of Seville", Countess Ceprano in "Rigoletto", the Dew Fairy and the Sandman in "Hansel and Gretel", Feklusa in "Káťa Kabanová", the First Lady in "The Magic Flute", the Flower Seller in Britten's "Death in Venice", Frasquita in "Carmen", Gerhilde in "Die Walküre", Giannetta in "L'elisir d'amore", Helen in "Mourning Becomes Electra", Ines in "Il trovatore", Jouvenot in "Adriana Lecouvreur", Kate Pinkerton in "Madama Butterfly", Laura in "Luisa Miller", Lauretta in "Gianni Schichi", Lisa in "La sonnambula", Marianne in "Der Rosenkavalier", Marthe in "Faust", Musetta in "La bohème", Oscar in "Un ballo in maschera", Samaritana in "Francesca da Rimini", Woglinde in both "Das Rheingold" and "Götterdämmerung", Xenia in "Boris Godunov", Zerlina in "Don Giovanni", and title role in "Lucia di Lammermoor".  In 1991 she created the role of the Woman with Child in the world premiere of John Corigliano's "The Ghosts of Versailles".
  Title: Tenore di grazia
  Passage: Tenore di grazia , also called leggero tenor ("graceful" and "light" tenor, respectively), is a lightweight, flexible tenor voice type.  The tenor roles written in the early 19th-century Italian operas are invariably leggero tenor roles, especially those by Rossini such as Lindoro in "L'italiana in Algeri", Don Ramiro in "La Cenerentola", and Almaviva in "Il barbiere di Siviglia"; and those by Bellini such as Gualtiero in "Il pirata", Elvino in "La sonnambula" and Arturo in "I puritani".  Many Donizetti roles, such as Nemorino in "L'elisir d'amore" and Ernesto in "Don Pasquale", Tonio in "La fille du régiment", are also "tenore di grazia" roles.  One of the most famous leggero tenors of that period was Giovanni Battista Rubini, for whom Bellini wrote nearly all his operas.
  Title: La sonnambula (Balanchine)
  Passage: La sonnambula "(The Sleepwalker)" is a ballet by the co-founder and ballet master of New York City Ballet, George Balanchine, made to Vittorio Rieti's music using themes from the operas of Vincenzo Bellini including "La Sonnambula", "Norma", "I Puritani" and "I Capuleti e i Montecchi" (1830–35) and with costumes by Karinska.  The premiere took place with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo on Wednesday, 27 February , at City Center of Music and Drama, New York; the City Ballet premiere was on 6 January 1965.
  Title: Luciano Mariani
  Passage: Luciano Mariani (1801 – 10 June 1859) was an Italian operatic bass.  Amongst the several roles he created were Rodolfo in Bellini's "La sonnambula" [Milan, Teatro Carcano, 1831], Alfonso d'Este in Donizetti's "Lucrezia Borgia" and Oroe in Rossini's "Semiramide".  His elder sister, Rosa Mariani, was also an opera singer (contralto) and sang Arsace in the premiere of "Semiramide".  They toured Italy singing together in many operas.  Mariani sang in Lisbon at the Teatro São Carlos from 1839 to 1840, where he appeared in several Portuguese premieres of Italian operas, as well as the world premieres of Antonio Luís Miró's opera "Virginia" and Manuel Inocêncio Liberato dos Santos's opera "Inês de Castro".  Mariani was born in Cremona and died in Castell'Arquato, aged 58.
  Title: Rae Woodland
  Passage: Rae Woodland (9 April 1922 – 12 December 2013) was a British soprano who studied with Roy Henderson.  Her debut was as Queen of the Night at Sadlers Wells.  She sang in many European festivals, and debuted at Covent Garden in "La sonnambula" with Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti.  She was first asked to sing for Benjamin Britten on the English Opera Group's tour of Russia, and played many roles for him subsequently.  She also created roles for Gottfried von Einem, Nicholas Maw and Sir Arthur Bliss, and made many live broadcasts for the BBC, from the RAH" Proms" to "Friday Night is Music Night".  She retired from the opera stage in 1984.  She then taught singing at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and at the Britten-Pears School in Snape Maltings on the invitation of Sir Peter Pears.
  Title: La sonnambula
  Passage: La sonnambula ("The Sleepwalker") is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the "bel canto" tradition by Vincenzo Bellini set to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a "ballet-pantomime" written by Eugène Scribe and choreographed by Jean-Pierre Aumer called "La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur".  The ballet had premiered in Paris in September 1827 at the height of a fashion for stage works incorporating somnambulism.
citations: La sonnambula Partenope (Zumaya)