In the more effective, two-act version of this highly atmospheric work, Bellini envelopes the heroine in an aura of mystery from the beginning. The overture's ominous opening, the complacently celebrating chorus, Isotta's scene in which she describes her fear of the stranger, Alaide's own first silent and veiled appearance in the dark boat, Arturo's expression of the fascination that the enigmatic woman holds over him, and finally her voice, heard from afar in a melancholy aria whose text only makes her still-untold story more compelling, all help build the Gothic aura of mysterious tragedy. The prologue, included at the librettist's urging, which sets out the reasons for her situation, does make the plot easier to follow but does much to undo this carefully created atmosphere.

Once she finally appears and sings, Alaide's music enhances her alienation (as the title suggests) from the other characters, whether it is an aria sung over the flute and/or harp (instruments that composers of this period frequently used to create a lovely but foreboding musical effect—Donizetti's Lucia being perhaps the best known), or her voice floating above the lower voices in an ensemble. Her last cabaletta has less of this tone, as she finally rails against rather than bewails her fate, but has more than enough dramatic power in its own fashion, and makes perhaps a more effective curtain piece than a continuation of her previous style would have made. (Bellini demanded for this cabaletta a text that would be "something that is at the same time prayer, invocation, menace, and raving.") While it is true that she is as much a stock figure as the rest of the characters (impetuous lover, jealous but ineffectual rival to the heroine, sturdy brother, compassionate prior), and the plot is full of absurd moments and hackneyed devices, nonetheless both the character and the opera have been highly successful vehicles for prima donnas, and in the hands of the right singers, create satisfying operatic theater.

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