A Close Shave with Rossini's The Barber of Seville Overture
The Backstory

Three Operas for the Price of One

If you listen to The Barber of Seville Overture and think it captures the exact spirit of a clever Spanish barber, I have a small confession to make. I actually didn't write a single note of this music for a barber at all. I first composed it back in 1813 in Milan for a very serious opera called Aureliano in Palmira, which was premiered at the Teatro alla Scala. When that show didn't last very long, I simply packed the sheet music into my travel bag like a good coat that was still far too nice to throw away.

From Ancient Ruins to an English Throne

Two years later, in 1815, I was working down in Naples as the musical director of the royal theatres for the impresario Domenico Barbaia. I needed a strong curtain-raiser for a new historical drama at the Teatro San Carlo called Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra. So I pulled that same overture out of my bag, adjusted the parts for the local orchestra, and let it introduce a story about royalty instead. The audience in Naples loved it, proving that a good tune doesn't care much about who is wearing the crown on stage.

A Very Tight Schedule in Rome

Toward the end of December 1815, Duke Francesco Sforza-Cesarini hired me to write a brand-new comic opera for the Carnival season at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. I was twenty-three years old at the time, juggling my duties in Naples with outside jobs, and the premiere was set for February 1816. Some stories claim I dashed the whole opera off in twelve or thirteen days, though modern scholars reckon it took me closer to two or three weeks. Either way, I was writing at a furious pace, much like a student finishing an essay while the teacher is already walking down the aisle.

The Mystery of the Missing Curtain-Raiser

Because I was in such a rush, I eventually needed an overture to open the show. A tale later went around, passed on by Edmond Michotte, that I first wrote a brand-new piece using Spanish folk tunes given to me by the tenor Manuel García, and that it somehow got lost. Most historians today doubt that story is true, and I certainly won't swear to it myself. What really matters is that my old curtain-raiser from Milan and Naples was sitting right there, ready for its third and greatest job.

Why You Won't Hear the Opera's Tunes

Because this overture was written years before I ever thought of the comedy it now opens, you won't hear any melodies from the opera itself inside it. People often assume an overture is a little preview of the songs to come, like a waiter reading out the evening's specials before you order. In my case, the music sets the mood purely through its energy and sparkle rather than by quoting the singers' tunes. Even though it started life in two serious dramas, its lively spirit turned out to be the best possible match for a comedy.

Tiptoeing Around an Older Master

Getting the opera onto the stage in Rome required a bit of careful diplomacy before we even played a note. An older and very famous composer named Giovanni Paisiello had already written a beloved opera on the exact same Beaumarchais play back in 1782. To show him proper respect, we didn't even dare call our new show by the barber's name at first, billing it instead as Almaviva, o sia L'inutile precauzione. We hoped that changing the title on the poster might keep his loyal fans from getting angry, though we were soon proven very wrong.

A Disaster on Opening Night

When we finally premiered the work on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, I sat at the keyboard myself to direct the performance. The whole evening turned into a famous disaster, with clumsy accidents happening on stage and Paisiello's supporters shouting and whistling from the seats. It felt less like conducting a theatre orchestra and more like trying to steer a small boat through a very noisy hailstorm. Thankfully, by the second night the troublemakers stayed home, the audience actually listened to the music, and the show became a massive triumph.

How I Earned My French Nickname

One reason the overture grabs people so quickly is a little trick I love to use, where I take a simple phrase and repeat it over and over while making it louder each time. I start gently with just the strings and a few winds, and then I keep adding flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, and a trombone. By the time the timpani, bass drum, and cymbals come crashing in at the peak, the whole theatre is shaking with excitement. People in Paris found this building wave of sound so thrilling that they started calling the device the Rossini crescendo, and they even nicknamed me Monsieur Crescendo.

Keeping the Music Short and Sweet

When I put the piece together, I also made sure not to bore the crowd with too much complicated musical paperwork. In a traditional piece of this kind, a composer usually writes a long middle section that takes the main tunes apart and wrestles with them from every angle. I decided to leave that middle workout out completely, jumping straight from the first presentation of my tunes right back to their return after a tiny bridge. That way you get all the excitement of the melodies twice, followed by a fast final dash called Più mosso that brings the curtain up in bright E major.

From nineteenth-century Rome to a Cartoon Barber Chair

Soon after our lively start in Rome, publishers like Casa Ricordi in Milan and Nicolas-Raphaël Carli in Paris printed vocal scores, while Ratti, Cencetti and Comp. brought out the full orchestral score in the 1820s. Over the decades my triple-recycled overture travelled all over the world, eventually landing in a place I never could have imagined in 1816. In 1950, the director Chuck Jones made it the star of a Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon called Rabbit of Seville, featuring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. It makes me smile to think that a piece I wrote for an ancient emperor in Milan ended up giving a cartoon hunter a very fast shave.