Page 150 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

148

GIVE ME A LAUNDRY

LIST, AND I WILL

SET IT TO MUSIC

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE (1816),
GIOACHIN0 ROSSINI

urviving a disastrous first marry her himself. Central to
IN CONTEXT night in Rome in 1816, the plot is the barber Figaro, a
S Il barbiere di Siviglia (The “fixer” in Seville. Its songs include
FOCUS Barber of Seville) by Gioachino Figaros’s “Largo al factotum della
Italian opera buffa
Rossini quickly won universal città” (“Make way for the factotum
BEFORE acclaim. Rossini had already of the city”) and Rosina’s “Una voce
1782 An earlier operatic written 16 operas, but this was his poco fa” (“A voice has just”).
version of Il barbiere di Siviglia first opera buffa (“comic opera”) as
(The Barber of Seville) by the opposed to an opera seria (“serious Operatic realism
Italian composer Giovanni opera”). It relates the attempts of The low-life settings and street
Paisiello is performed for the the Count Almaviva to win the language of the opera buffa brought
first time in St. Petersburg. beautiful Rosina, ward of the much fresh realism to musical drama, and
older Dr. Bartolo, who intends to its popularity spread throughout
1786 Mozart’s The Marriage Europe. Mozart’s The Marriage of
of Figaro receives its first Figaro and Così fan tutte are other
performance in Vienna. examples of the comic opera genre.
Beethoven admired The Barber
AFTER of Seville, as did Verdi and Wagner.
1843 Gaetano Donizetti’s Yet, apart from a one-act farce,
comic opera Don Pasquale is Dear God, here it is finished, Rossini wrote no other comedies.
performed for the first time at this poor little Mass. Is this In the 1820s, he became director
the Théâtre Italien in Paris. sacred music … or music of of the Théâtre Italien, in Paris,
the devil? I was born for opera where he wrote five more operas,
1850 Crispino e la comare buffa, as you well know. culminating in Guillaume Tell
(“The cobbler and the fairy”) Gioachino Rossini (William Tell) in 1829. After this,
by the brothers Luigi and his output declined. One of his few
Federico Ricci is one of the last large-scale pieces in the last three
examples of true opera buffa. decades of his life was his Petite
messe solennelle (“small solemn
mass”) of 1863. ■

See also: Le bourgeois gentilhomme 70–71 ■ The Magic Flute 134–137 ■
La traviata 174–175 ■ Tosca 194–197

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