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About Rossini
EARLY YEARS
The composer of The Barber of Seville was born in Pesaro, Italy, on February 29, 1792 (a leap year). For a time his parents earned a living traveling from one small opera house to another—his mother as a singer and his father as a horn player in the orchestra. Gioachino was occasionally left behind with his grandmother and his aunt in Pesaro. He had only a little education in reading, writing, grammar and arithmetic. Much of the time he ran wild.
When Gioachino was 12, his parents ended their travels and settled in Bologna. The boy studied music with a talented priest. He also began to play the violin and viola and to compose sonatas and other pieces. Because of his beautiful singing voice, he was often invited to sing in churches in Bologna, and he was soon able to earn extra money playing harpsichord for opera companies in and around Bologna.
At 14, he began more formal music studies at the Conservatory. Although he rebelled against the strict textbook rules for music, he was a good student and even received a gold medal. At the end of his first year, he was chosen to write a cantata that was performed in public. Unfortunately, he had to leave the Conservatory after four years in order to earn money for his family. All his life he was to regret the fact that he did not receive more musical training.
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| Gioachino Rossini |
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SUCCESS
Rossini's first paid composition was a one-act comic opera for a theatre in Venice. The Marriage Contract, written in less than a week, earned him one hundred dollars—an enormous sum for the 19-year-old Gioachino! The opera was a success, and he kept writing. His first major success came in 1812 with The Touchstone, which used musical pieces from his earlier opera. This comic opera was performed over 50 times in its first season alone. As a result of its success, he was paid to write three more operas for Venice. Speed was one of Rossini’s most notable characteristics as a composer—he had actually written five operas in that one year!
Rossini's first serious opera, Tancredi (its overture borrowed from The Touchstone) opened in Venice in 1813, and became popular throughout Italy, Europe, and North and South America. With his comic opera The Italian Girl in Algiers, the 21 year-old Rossini became the hit of Venice. Emperor Aurelian in Palmyra, and The Turk in Italy followed.
THE BARBER OF SEVILLE
In Rome in 1815, he signed a contract to compose The Barber of Seville. Rossini composed the entire opera in less than three weeks! Opening night was not a success. There were on-stage accidents (including the antics of a cat who wandered on stage) and the performance was quite poor. Worst of all, the noisy fans of an older composer, Paisiello, who had composed his own Barber several years earlier, heckled and jeered from the audience. Rossini made some minor changes, and the second performance was a success. Since then, it has become one of the most popular, best- loved operas of all time.
In the six years following The Barber of Seville, Rossini composed 16 operas, turning out full-length operas in a few weeks or even days. Some were good, others were not. Among the best were Cinderella, The Thieving Magpie, Moses in Egypt, Semiramide, The Siege of Corinth, and The Count Ory. His thirty-ninth and final opera was William Tell, the familiar story in which William Tell must shoot an apple off the top of someone’s head. You probably know the William Tell overture as the theme to “The Lone Ranger” and have heard it played in many cartoons!
ROSSINI AND THE GOOD LIFE
After William Tell, Rossini completely gave up writing operas. In his final years, he was plagued with physical and emotional illnesses. But in his good periods, he was a popular member of French society, and everyone wanted invitations to a Rossini dinner or party.
Rossini was a very skilled chef and a great lover of food. One of his favorite dishes was turkey stuffed with truffles (very expensive mushrooms). According to one story, Rossini claims to have cried only three times in his life: the first time over the failure of The Barber of Seville’s premiere; the second when he heard famous violinist Niccolò Paganini play; and finally, when his picnic lunch, a turkey stuffed with truffles, fell overboard.
Rossini gave his name to many recipes, including a very famous dish called Tournedos Rossini. Great chefs dedicated dishes to him, such as Poached Eggs alla Rossini, Chicken alla Rossini, and Filet of Sole alla Rossini. A dessert dedicated to William Tell was a tart served on the opera's 1829 Paris opening night. Of course, it was an apple tart decorated with an apple pierced by a sugar arrow alongside a sugar crossbow.
Active in social and cultural affairs, Rossini remained in his later years as a Viennese newspaper had earlier described him: "..highly accomplished, of agreeable manner and pleasant appearance, full of wit and fun, cheerful, obliging, courteous, and most accessible. He is much in society, and charms everyone by his simple unassuming style." Thus we can see that Rossini was a person not unlike Figaro himself: resourceful, quick-witted, friendly to all. By this time, of course, Rossini was enjoying the wealth he had earned by all his industry; portraits show him as plump, with a simple, kindly face, and a humorous twinkle in his eyes, looking rather like a prosperous businessman in his Sunday suit and wig!
A GREAT LOSS
After a final illness, Rossini died in his summer home in Passy, outside Paris, in 1868. He was buried in Paris at a magnificent funeral attended by many admirers and dignitaries. Later, at the request of the Italian government, his body was moved to the Church of Santa Croce in Florence. After providing for his wife, he left most of his wealth to start a conservatory of music at Pesaro, his birthplace in Italy.
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