"life. During his Paris years, Rossini created the comic operas ""Il viaggio a Reims"" and ""Le comte Ory"" and the grand opera ""Guillaume Tell"" (""William Tell""). The production of the latter in 1829 brought his career as a writer of opera to a close. Fabio Luisi said that Rossini planned for ""Guillaume Tell"" to be his last opera even as he composed it. He was thirty-eight years old and had already composed thirty-eight operas. ""Guillaume Tell"" was a political epic adapted from Schiller's play ""Wilhelm Tell"" (1804) about the 13th-century Swiss patriot who rallied his country against the Austrians. The"
"Rossini! Rossini! Rossini! Rossini! is a 1991 Italian biographical film written and directed by Mario Monicelli. It depicts real life events of composer Gioachino Rossini. Monicelli replaced Robert Altman that, due to differences with the production, gave up. The film won the David di Donatello for Best Costumes. In 1868 the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini is already famous all over the country. However, his last opera ""The Barber of Seville"" is not understood and even booed by the audience at La Scala for the indecency of the sets and love situations. Also disappointed by the replicas at the Teatro San"
"Semiramide Semiramide () is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto by Gaetano Rossi is based on Voltaire's tragedy ""Semiramis"", which in turn was based on the legend of Semiramis of Assyria. The opera was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on 3 February 1823. ""Semiramide"" was Rossini's final Italian opera and according to Richard Osborne, ""could well be dubbed ""Tancredi Revisited"""". As in ""Tancredi"", Rossi's libretto was based on a Voltaire tragedy. The music took the form of a return to vocal traditions of Rossini's youth, and was a melodrama in which he ""recreated the"
"been appointed director of the Liceo Musicale and conductor and director of the Teatro Regio. At the Liceo, his pupils included the composer and orchestral musician Raffaello Squarise and the heroic tenor Francesco Tamagno, who later created the title role in Verdi's penultimate masterpiece, ""Otello"". At the Regio, as well as improving the quality of opera performances, he inaugurated a series of popular concerts. Following the death of Gioachino Rossini in November 1868, Pedrotti was one of the composers invited by Verdi to contribute to the Messa per Rossini that was to be performed on the anniversary of Rossini's death."
"artistry during which she never leaves the stage. It should be noted that, in the 1822 Venice revision, Rossini substituted his own aria """" from ""La donna del lago"" in order to achieve the conventional effect, as well as to create a happy ending. Also, as Gossett notes, a significant additional feature of the opera is that there are only five independent arias in the opera, only two of which end with cabalettas. In Venice, this version ""was well received when Rossini revised it for performances...at the Teatro La Fenice in December 1822."", his last composition for an Italian house."
"Carlo in Naples, then Rossini decides to move to Paris, where he is hailed as a genius. Rossini! Rossini! Rossini! Rossini! is a 1991 Italian biographical film written and directed by Mario Monicelli. It depicts real life events of composer Gioachino Rossini. Monicelli replaced Robert Altman that, due to differences with the production, gave up. The film won the David di Donatello for Best Costumes. In 1868 the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini is already famous all over the country. However, his last opera ""The Barber of Seville"" is not understood and even booed by the audience at La Scala for"
"Gioachino Rossini Gioachino Antonio Rossini (; 29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as some sacred music, songs, chamber music, and piano pieces. He was a precocious composer of operas, and he made his debut at age 18 with ""La cambiale di matrimonio"". His best-known operas include the Italian comedies ""The Barber of Seville"" (""Il barbiere di Siviglia""), ""The Italian Girl in Algiers"" (""L'italiana in Algeri""), and ""Cinderella"" (""La Cenerentola""). He also wrote a string of serious operas in Italian, including works such as ""Tancredi"", ""Otello"", and ""Semiramide"". ""The Thieving"
"the iconoclastic Napoleon. The last great operatic castrato was Giovanni Battista Velluti (1781–1861), who performed the last operatic castrato role ever written: Armando in ""Il crociato in Egitto"" by Meyerbeer (Venice, 1824). Soon after this they were replaced definitively as the first men of the operatic stage by a new breed of heroic tenor, as first incarnated by the Frenchman Gilbert-Louis Duprez, the earliest so-called ""king of the high Cs"". His successors have included such singers as Enrico Tamberlik, Jean de Reszke, Francesco Tamagno, Enrico Caruso, Giovanni Martinelli, Beniamino Gigli, Jussi Björling, Franco Corelli and Luciano Pavarotti, among others. After"
"one of a number of mostly French subjects suggested by each traveller and drawn from an urn. The winning subject turns out, appropriately enough, to be ""Charles X, King of France"". The opera ends with dances and a chorus. Notes Sources Il viaggio a Reims Il viaggio a Reims, ossia L'albergo del giglio d'oro (The Journey to Reims, or The Hotel of the Golden Fleur-de-lis) is an operatic dramma giocoso, originally performed in three acts, by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Balocchi, based in part on ""Corinne, ou L'Italie"" by Mme de Staël. Rossini's last opera in"
"cast uniquely includes two love-lorn donkeys, Ciccio and Checca. ""La farsa amorosa"", which turned out to be the composer's last completed opera, premiered on February 22, 1933 at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, Opera Director Marcello Govoni. La farsa amorosa La farsa amorosa is an opera in three acts by Italian composer Riccardo Zandonai. The opera is on a comic subject, and was an attempt to revitalize the ""opera buffa"" tradition which flourished in Italy during the 18th and early 19th centuries. The story is based on the novel ""El sombrero de tres picos"", (1874) by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón,"
"Il viaggio a Reims Il viaggio a Reims, ossia L'albergo del giglio d'oro (The Journey to Reims, or The Hotel of the Golden Fleur-de-lis) is an operatic dramma giocoso, originally performed in three acts, by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Balocchi, based in part on ""Corinne, ou L'Italie"" by Mme de Staël. Rossini's last opera in the Italian language (all of his later works were in French) premiered under the title Le voyage à Reims, ou l'Hôtel du Lys-d'Or. It was commissioned to celebrate the coronation of French King Charles X in Reims in 1825 and has"
"William Tell Overture The ""William Tell"" Overture is the overture to the opera ""William Tell"" (original French title ""Guillaume Tell""), whose music was composed by Gioachino Rossini. ""William Tell"" premiered in 1829 and was the last of Rossini's 39 operas, after which he went into semi-retirement (he continued to compose cantatas, sacred music and secular vocal music). The overture is in four parts, each following without pause. There has been repeated use (and sometimes parody) of parts of this overture in both classical music and popular media, most famously as the theme music for ""The Lone Ranger"" in radio, television"
"stronger and the sky is filled with fire and lightning. The curtain falls on a scene of desolation. Notes Sources L'ultimo giorno di Pompei L'ultimo giorno di Pompei (""The last day of Pompeii"") is an opera (""dramma per musica"") in two acts composed by Giovanni Pacini to an Italian libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola. It premiered to great success at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on 19 November 1825 followed by productions in the major opera houses of Italy, Austria, France, and Portugal. When Pacini's popularity declined in the mid-19th century, the opera was all but forgotten until 1996"
"were assigned to tenors (in Rossini's time, they were frequently sung by alto or mezzo-soprano women). Villains became basses or later baritones (while they often were tenors for Rossini). Over time, far more emphasis was placed on the drama. The role that Pacini played in instituting these changes is only now beginning to be recognized. There is little doubt that Pacini and his contemporary Nicola Vaccai exerted a stronger influence on Bellini than has been credited before. This change in attitude can be credited to the revival of two key works: Vaccai's ""Giulietta e Romeo"" and Pacini's ""L'ultimo giorno di"
"operas on patriotic themes and many of the standard romantic sources: Friedrich Schiller (""Giovanna d'Arco"", 1845; ""I masnadieri"", 1847; ""Luisa Miller"", 1849); Lord Byron (""I due Foscari"", 1844; ""Il corsaro"", 1848); and Victor Hugo (""Ernani"", 1844; ""Rigoletto"", 1851). Verdi was experimenting with musical and dramatic forms, attempting to discover things which only opera could do. In 1887, he created ""Otello"" which completely replaced Rossini's opera of the same name, and which is described by critics as the finest of Italian romantic operas with the traditional components: the solo arias, the duets and the choruses fully integrated into the melodic and"
"to welcome worthy of a modern media celebrity. Not only did he revive the flagging fortunes of the Théâtre-Italien, but he also turned his attention to the Opéra, giving it French versions of his Italian operas and a new piece, ""Guillaume Tell"" (1829). This proved to be Rossini's final work for the stage. Ground down by the excessive workload of running a theatre and disillusioned by the failure of ""Tell"", Rossini retired as an opera composer. ""Guillaume Tell"" might initially have been a failure but together with a work from the previous year, Auber's ""La muette de Portici"", it ushered"
"Conti) and Gian Battista Velluti, the last castrato. Caffarelli, Farinelli, and Gizziello were products of the local conservatories of Naples From 1815 to 1822, Gioachino Rossini was house composer and artistic director of the royal opera houses, including the San Carlo. During this period he wrote ten operas which were ""Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra"" (1815), ""La gazzetta"", ""Otello, ossia il Moro di Venezia"" (1816), ""Armida"" (1817), ""Mosè in Egitto"", ""Ricciardo e Zoraide"" (1818), ""Ermione"", ""Bianca e Falliero"", ""Eduardo e Cristina"", ""La donna del lago"" (1819), ""Maometto II"" (1820), and ""Zelmira"" (1822). Regular singers of the period included Manuel Garcia and his"
"Lammermoor""), or timeless love (Lindoro's short cabaletta from Rossini's ""L'italiana in Algeri""). Rossini wrote at least one or even more cabalettas for all major characters in his operas. For example, ""L'italiana in Algeri"" contains two cabalettas for Lindoro, three cabalettas for Isabella, one cabaletta for Mustafa, and one for Taddeo. If the final parts of the ensembles are included, the total is almost sixteen cabalettas. Giuseppe Verdi continued to adapt the cantabile–cabaletta formula to great emotional and dramatic effect, before largely abandoning it by 1862 as a solo piece with Don Carlo's ""Egli è salvo"" in ""La forza del destino""."
"were popular in Venice at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. The pieces were intimate, with a cast of five to seven singers, always including a pair of lovers, at least two comic parts, and one or two other minor roles. The style called for much visual comedy improvised by the players. As compared to many genres of opera, acting and comedic talent is more important relative to the required singing ability. Rossini’s farces also have a significant sentimental element. Dormont is the teacher and guardian of the beautiful Giulia, and he is"
"However, the composer had to bow to a need for a significant change to the original ending, thus ""spar[ing] Venetian sensibilities by providing a happy [one]"". Philip Gossett provides an explanation for the change made to the Venice score, which includes this happy ending: it is ""to remove the horror of the historical catastrophe"" and, therefore, Rossini instructed a copyist to end the opera using the rondo, """", from his ""La donna del lago"" of 1819, thus removing Maometto's final confrontation with Anna, his discovery of her marriage to Calbo, and her suicide. This version also includes music from ""Bianca"
"the revenge of the belcanto of yore on the late 18th century’s singing fashion and contributed, together with Pacchiarotti, Grassini, Luísa Todi de Agujar, the tenor Giacomo David, and few others, to lay the bases for the splendours of Rossini ""grand finale"" of two centuries’ history of operatic singing. Something of his concept of singing, as he had expressed it in the mentioned “""Esercizi per la vocalizzazione""”, is likely to have passed as well in the vocal style of Bellini operas. Girolamo Crescentini Girolamo Crescentini (Urbania, 2 February 1762 – Naples 24 April 1846) was a noted Italian singer castrato"
"villainous hero ""Marcus Horatius"". Babini retired from the stage in 1803, though he was still in demand for premiere performances by such composers as Zingarelli and Bertoni. Having settled again in his native town, after an Italian career based almost wholly around Venice, he then proceeded to teach. In addition to singing, he also taught the ""stage art"" by which he had so much distinguished himself. One of his pupils was a teenaged Gioachino Rossini, who would recount, to Ferdinand Hiller in his old age, the story of his juvenile fancies to become a singer and of his meeting the"
"production of the opera in 2018 . Among other performances, the opera received a production at the Rossini in Wildbad festival in 2013 . The Nubian King Agorante, who is infatuated with Zoraide, has defeated her father, Ircano and captured her. Ricciardo, a Christian knight and Zoraide's lover, accompanies an emissary to plead for her release. Agorante's jealous wife, Zomira, arranges the capture of Ricciardo as well and plots to have the young lovers executed to protect her position as Queen. The opera ends with an army of Christian knights rescuing Ricciardo and Zoraide. Ricciardo spares Agorante's life. Notes Sources"
"chains. Notes Sources Zelmira Zelmira () is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola. Based on the French play, ""Zelmire"" by de Belloy, it was the last of the composer's Neapolitan operas. Stendhal called its music Teutonic, comparing it with ""La clemenza di Tito"" but remarking: ""...while Mozart would probably, had he lived, have grown completely Italian, Rossini may well, by the end of his career, have become more German than Beethoven himself!"" The first performance of ""Zelmira"" was in Naples at the Teatro di San Carlo on 16 February 1822. This"
"French version of this late Rossini opera was a partial rewrite of the composer's 1820 Italian opera, ""Maometto II"", but with exactly the same story and characters, in the setting of the Turks' 1470 conquest of the Venetian colony of Negroponte. That original version had premiered in Naples on 3 December 1820 – six years before the Missolonghi siege and massacre. The original ""Maometto"" was not well received, neither in Naples nor in Venice where Rossini tried out a somewhat revised version in 1823, this time with a happy ending using music from his own ""La donna del lago"" at"
"political themes. Likewise Roger Parker argues that the political dimension of Verdi's operas was exaggerated by nationalistic historians looking for a hero in the late 19th century. Giuseppe Verdi's ""Nabucco"" and the Risorgimento are the subject of a 2011 opera, ""Risorgimento!"" by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero, written to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Italian unification. ""The Leopard"" is a film from 1963, based on the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and directed by Luchino Visconti. It features Burt Lancaster as the eponymous character, the Prince of Salina. The film depicts his reaction to the Risorgimento, and his vain"
"his death in 1688. His most enduring works remain the two Innsbruck operas he wrote for Antonio Cesti in the 1650s—""La Dori"" and ""L'Argia"". Convoluted semi-comic tales of multiple disguises and mistaken identities, both of them were immensely popular in their day with multiple productions in Italy during Apolloni's lifetime. ""L'Argia"" had its first performance in modern times at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music in 1996 with subsequent performances in Lausanne and Paris. ""La Dori"" has been revived several times in the 20th century, including productions in 1983 at the Spitalfields Festival in London, 1990 at the Mannes College"
"Italian epic. From the fifteenth century onwards, he appears as a central character in a sequence of Italian verse romances as ""Orlando"", including ""Morgante"" by Luigi Pulci, ""Orlando Innamorato"" by Matteo Maria Boiardo, and ""Orlando furioso"" by Ludovico Ariosto. (See below for his later history in Italian verse.) The ""Orlandino"" of Pietro Aretino then waxed satirical about the ""cult of personality"" of Orlando the hero. The Orlando narrative inspired several composers, amongst whom were Claudio Monteverdi, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Antonio Vivaldi and George Frideric Handel, who composed an Italian-language opera with ""Orlando"". In Germany, Roland gradually became a symbol of the"
"Rossini a contract lasting seven seasons, and the composer obliged with ten operas, including ""Otello"", ""Armida"", ""Mosè in Egitto"", ""Ermione"", ""La donna del lago"" and ""Maometto II"". Among the singers in Barbaia's company for whom Rossini wrote a number of roles during this period were the tenors Giovanni David and Andrea Nozzari, the bass Michele Benedetti and the great mezzo-soprano Isabella Colbran. The latter was Barbaia's lover for a time; eventually, though, she left him for Rossini. He died in Posillipo in 1841. Notes Cited sources Other sources Domenico Barbaia Domenico Barbaia (also spelled Barbaja; 10 August 1777 – 19"
"Zelmira Zelmira () is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola. Based on the French play, ""Zelmire"" by de Belloy, it was the last of the composer's Neapolitan operas. Stendhal called its music Teutonic, comparing it with ""La clemenza di Tito"" but remarking: ""...while Mozart would probably, had he lived, have grown completely Italian, Rossini may well, by the end of his career, have become more German than Beethoven himself!"" The first performance of ""Zelmira"" was in Naples at the Teatro di San Carlo on 16 February 1822. This was followed by"
"Ronza"", the highly acclaimed Roman poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, who had been mesmerized by her Norma, confirms her voluptuousness and its seductive effects on the public and concluded that the whole theater seemed to waver: ""Blessed be this witch who enchants us"". Shortly after her husband's death in New York, she retired from the stage. She died in Florence, in 1853 aged 53, leaving a substantial inheritance to her only child Clotilde who in 1843 had married the tenor Gaetano Fraschini. Clotilde was most likely born during the mid 1820s hiatus. In 1818, Rossini secured her as Ninetta in his"
"or in Verdi's ""Otello"" of 1887. In further contrast, the role of Rodrigo, of subsidiary importance in Shakespeare and Verdi, is very prominent in Rossini's version and is assigned some of the most difficult and brilliant music. The roles of Otello, Iago, and Rodrigo are all composed for the tenor voice. Rossini's ""Otello"" is an important milestone in the development of opera as musical drama. It provided Giuseppe Verdi with a benchmark for his own adaptations of Shakespeare. A 1999 Opera Rara CD of the opera includes an alternative happy ending, a common practice with drama and opera at that"
"Stendhal, Rossini's earliest biographer, to be ""high amongst the composer's masterworks"", and describing it as ""a genuine thunderbolt out of a clear, blue sky for the Italian lyric theatre,"" his librettist Gaetano Rossi notes that, with it, ""Rossini rose to glory"". Richard Osborne proclaims it to be ""his fully fledged ""opera seria"" and it established him, more of less instantly, as Italy's leading composer of contemporary opera."" Although the original version had a happy ending (as required by the ""opera seria"" tradition), soon after the Venice premiere, Rossini—who was more of a Neo-classicist than a Romantic, notes Servadio—had the poet"