Rossini

Una Voce Poco Fa

July 7, 2025

Rossini’s setting of the first of Beaumarchais’s Figaro trilogy, The Barber of Seville, is arguably the greatest comic opera ever written. Its zany zest, unparalleled mirth, overwhelming energy, and musical beauty and inventiveness place it in a spot occupied only by the Marx Brothers. The Count Almaviva is infatuated with Rosina, an heiress whom her […]

Rossini After Opera

July 5, 2023

Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) was only 37 years old after the premiere of William Tell in 1829. He was the leading operatic composer in the world. Yet for reason still unresolved, he never wrote another opera during the four decades of life which remained to him. He was not mute during this period away from the […]

Rossini String Sonatas

July 15, 2020

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) grew up in a musical and operatic family; his mother was a singer and his father a horn player. He is the only composer to write multiple masterpieces before reaching 25: Tancredi, L’italiana in Algeri, Il turco in Italia, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Otello, ossia Il moro di Venezia, and La Cenerentola. […]

Viva Rossini!

July 9, 2019

During his active phase as an opera composer Gioachino Rossini (1792-1968) was the most popular composer of operas throughout the Western World. After his premature retirement from the stage at age 37, he was eclipsed in popularity first by Verdi and then by Puccini. For a while the only opera of his to be regularly […]

Colorado Springs Philharmonic Opens Season

September 16, 2018

The CSP opened its 2018-19 season this evening (Sept 15) under the direction of its music director Josep Caballé-Domenech. The Pikes Peak Center was full of an enthusiastic audience that had two out of three pieces to be enthusiastic about. The first was Rossini’s overture to L’Italiana in Algeri. The Philharmonic’s Catalan maestro lead a […]

Donner and Blitzen in Santa Fe Plus L’Italiana in Algeri

August 4, 2018

On Thursday August 4 there was a terrific thunderstorm over the Crosby Theater of the Santa Fe Opera. The show, appropriately Dr Atomic, continued even though the stage and surrounding area were drenched. The following afternoon an even more explosive storm hit the central area of Santa Fe causing a prolonged blackout. So we went […]

Semiramide in HD

March 10, 2018

Semiramide, Rossini’s last Italian opera before his move to Paris, was immensely popular in the 19th century; it all but vanished in the 20th. It’s the last classical Italian opera, a style that succumbed to French Grand Opera and to Italian romantic and more realistic opera. The opera has a plot that makes the Gordian […]

10th Anniversary

December 2, 2017

Ten years ago today, I published the first post here. Almost 900 articles have followed. To mark the date, here are three videos presented for no other reason than that they are beautiful and on topic. It’s no accident that liberty is at the core of all three. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUAsgHN__8E

William Tell: Act 4 Scene 1

March 22, 2017

After an hiatus of 85 years, last fall the Met brought back Rossini’s William Tell in its original French version. Previous performances of the opera by the company were done in German! and Italian. One of the main reasons for Tell’s infrequent stagings is its demanding tenor role, Arnold. This part was first sung by […]

Sois Immobile

November 3, 2016

Last night the Sirius Network broadcast William Tell from the Met. This run of the opera is the first time that it has been performed by the company in 85 years. The opera when done complete, as the Met is doing it, lasts about five hours including the two intervals. But the music is good […]

Finale 8 – Act 1 Barber of Seville

April 24, 2016

Nobody exceeded Rossini in the mirth, invention, and sheer zaniness of the finales to his comic operas. The end of act 1 of The Barber of Seville is matched only by the Master from Pesaro himself. The action (really the inaction) is the response of Bartolo and Basilio to the release of the Count (who is […]

Mosè in Egitto – Dal tuo stellato soglio

April 9, 2016

Mosè in Egitto was written in 1818 for the San Carlo in Naples. Rossini added the prayer that is this subject of this piece the following year. In 1827 he extensively revised the work into what became Moïse et Pharaon (a four act work) for the Paris Opera. Below is a synopsis of Act 3, […]

Finale 5 – William Tell Act 1

November 29, 2015

William Tell is an Italian opera; no matter that Rossini wrote it to a French script. It’s as Italian as mozzarella. The finale to act 1 sets a model for many of the Italian operas which followed Rossini’s final work. This version of this finale is taken from the performance of Tell in 2013 at the […]

Finale 2 – Tancredi Act 1

October 28, 2015

Now for another first act finale by Rossini written at about the same time as the one from L’Italiana. Tancredi was Rossini’s first big success. It was premiered in Venice at La Fenice a few months before L’Italiana. It’s an opera seria, though the finale we’re about to hear could just as well come from […]

Finale 1 – L’Italiana in Algeri Act 1

October 27, 2015

I decided to post, from time to time, a finale from an Italian opera (all the really good ones are Italian). It can be from either a comic or serious opera. My only criterion is that it be really good. I’ll start with the finale to Act 1 of Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri. Rossini was […]