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Composer Gioacchino Rossini was born on Feb. 29, 1792 in Pesaro, Italy to Anna Guardarini, an opera singer, and Giuseppe Antonio Rossini, a horn player. Rossini was raised mostly by his grandmother.
Although he was apprenticed to a blacksmith and a butcher to keep him out of trouble, Rossini was a musical child, and in 1806 at age 14 he left the world of work to begin his studies at Bologna's Accademica Filarmonica.
By the following year Rossini had learned to play both the violin and the harpsichord, and his spare time was spent working as a rehearsal pianist and a keyboard player at theatres around town. He left school before graduation to work as an apprentice composer at the Teatro San Moisè, Venice, where he wrote four one-act farcical operas.
Following his apprenticeship, Rossini's first two successes were La pietra del paragone (1812) and Tancredi (1813). With The Italian Girl in Algiers in 1813, Rossini broke new ground, integrating serious elements into a comic opera, for example Isabella's cavatina “Cruda sorte,” and her rondo “Pensa alla patria.”
In 1815, Rossini was offered a very prestigious position at the wealthiest opera house in Europe, the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. Between his arrival in 1815 and his departure in 1822, he wrote nine operas for San Carlo and nine for other companies; one of the latter was the now-famous The Barber of Seville.
In 1824, having married Neapolitan soprano Isabella Colbran and achieved successes in Vienna and London, Rossini moved to Paris to work at the Théâtre des Italiens and, later, the Paris Opéra. Once he had a handle on the French language and theatrical tradition, Rossini was ready to compose for a Parisian audience.
His great comic opera Le Comte Ory, which recycled sections of his earlier opera Il viaggio a Reims, was a huge success. The political epic Guillaume Tell, which was the culmination of Rossini's development as an artist, was likewise successful, but it also turned out to be his last opera.
Having composed 39 operas in 19 years, and having kept busy in Paris fostering the careers of young singers such as Maria Malibran and young composers such as Meyerbeer, Donizetti, and Bellini, Rossini needed a break.
He went home to visit his widowed father, intending to return to Paris and to continue to compose.
In 1830, while the composer was still in Italy, the French government fell, and the new administration made huge budget cutbacks. Rossini, having been employed by the fallen government, lost his contract and his lifetime annuity. After six years of litigation the annuity was restored, but by this time Rossini had decided to retire.
In 1855 he returned to Paris, where he held weekly musical salons and helped to develop the careers of young singers such as soprano Adelina Patti. Rossini had been a hero for much of his working life, but by the time he retired his music was no longer as fashionable as it had once been. He died Nov. 13, 1868 in Passy, France.
Today Rossini's importance to the development of opera is much better understood than it once was. He revitalized Italian opera, founded the bel canto tradition, developed French opera, integrated the French and Italian operatic traditions, and made use of numerous compositional innovations.
Jacopo Ferretti was born July 16, 1784, in Vienna, Austria. He was an Italian writer, poet and opera librettist, most famous for having written libretti for two operas by Rossini and five by Donizetti.
He was introduced by his father to literature while very young and in addition to his native Italian, Ferretti mastered not only Latin and Ancient Greek but also French and English, and began writing verse early. He was extremely prolific, writing everything from love letters to odes and welcoming speeches but was celebrated mostly for his numerous opera libretti. His first big success was La Cenerentola, written at great speed for Rossini over Christmas in 1816.
Ferretti married the singer Teresa Terziani, and their house was continually visited by musicians and poets, including Donizetti, who was a good friend. He died in Vienna on March 7, 1852.