Gioachino Rossini

By his early twenties Rossini was famous across Europe. Born in Pesaro in 1792 to a horn player and a singer, he studied at the Bologna conservatory and was working in the theatre while still in his teens. His operas include L'italiana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La Cenerentola, Otello, Semiramide and Mosè in Egitto. He moved to Paris, wrote Guillaume Tell in 1829, and then, at thirty-seven, effectively stopped writing opera — producing across the long later years sacred works, among them the Stabat Mater and the Petite messe solennelle, and the salon miniatures he called Péchés de vieillesse. From 1815 he held the post of house composer at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and he settled in Paris in 1824; he died in 1868, having written nearly forty operas. The early years brought five farces, among them Il signor Bruschino, given at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice on 27 January 1813 to a libretto by Giuseppe Maria Foppa, whose overture earned him from his friends the name Monsieur Crescendo; La pietra del paragone, to Luigi Romanelli's libretto, had reached La Scala on 26 September 1812.