The Italian composer Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) is best known for his operas, of which he wrote 39 between 1806 and 1829. Adopting the opera buffa style of Domenico Cimarosa and Giovanni Paisiello, Rossini became the dominant composer of Italian opera during the first half of the 19th-century. Though working at the same time as Vincenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti, he was recognized by his contemporaries as the greatest Italian composer of his time, an evaluation which has lasted into the 21st-century.
The operas are catalogued in a critical edition from the Fondazione Rossini [it], Pesaro, and published by Casa Ricordi.[1] This edition identifies individual operas by their EC numbers (Edizione critica).[2]
^Possibly after Felice Romani's libretto Il Califfo e la schiava for Francesco Basily (1819)
^originally written [1810] for Stefano Pavesi), revised for Rossini by Gherardo Bevilacqua-Aldobrandini and Andrea Leone Tottola
^The libretto is stated to have been derived from della Valle's own play Anna Erizo (1820) but may have come from Romani's libretto Maometto (1817) for Peter von Winter. Others have erroneously stated Voltaire's Le Fanatisme ou Mahomet le Prophète as a potential source.
^also titled Matilde Shabran [initially], Bellezza e Cuor di Ferro [Naples, 1821] and Corradino [Milan, also 1821]
^The opera was originally intended for performance in Vienna.
^The libretto may also have been derived from one by Metastasio, which Rossi used for Semiramide riconosciuta by Giacomo Meyerbeer.
^Information is from Gossett (2001), unless otherwise noted.
Sources
Cagli, Bruno; Gossett, Philip; Zedda, Albert, eds. (1979–2021). Edizione critica delle opere di Gioachino Rossini [Critical edition of the works of Gioachino Rossini]. Pesaro; Milan: Fondazione Rossini; Casa Ricordi. OCLC14718769.
